An Unemployed Jester (Nobody's Fool) - Mother Nature has a sense of humor.

My cousin's wedding was this weekend. We thought it would be good to see the family again, and so we decided to make the trip to New York City for it.

The plan was this. I'd take Friday off. Wed drop the kids off at Camp Grandma. The flight leaves around 1:30 PM, so we'd get to NYC in plenty of time for the family dinner. The next day we'd hang out with friends of high school, finishing in plenty of time for the wedding. Sunday we would leave early for a 9 AM flight, getting home after picking up our children in time for a relaxing day.


The first part worked well. We made it to the airport with plenty of time. My normal parking company was full up, so we went to the secondary one. The first one has spaces for about 500 cars.

The second one has spaces for 7,500 cars.

It was full. Yikes!

But they had an overflow lot.

Still, no problem.

We have a half hour before boarding, so...wait, no, the flight is delayed from 1:30, and is now scheduled for 3 PM.

No problem. Elaine has lots of books. I get a bunch of work done on my computer. Well, slight problem. My brain was more on the flight and the trip, so I sent out some emails without thinking things through enough. This could cause me long term problems, but I think we fixed things.

Had lots more time. The flight was delayed again until 4:30. Apparently there was a huge weather front from DC to Maine. Not good.

During this time we saw a juggler practice. He could do seven balls! Unfortunately, he was thwarted by a guard who told him to stop "because an old lady might trip on one of his balls on the ground." Right.

At 6 PM or so, a flight to DC takes off (that's good,right?), but we are told that we won't be taking off until 8 PM.

No problem. Elaine and I discuss what to do about dinner. We already had some "wonderful" airport food, but that was awhile ago. Yet we weren't hungry. As we discuss this, we notice that people are lining up at the gate to board, with a new take off time of 7 PM.

Really? Nice that very few people heard the announcement. We weren't the only confused ones.

No problem. We board the plane, many others board the plane. Five minutes into the boarding, we get the announcement, "This flight is canceled. Everyone off the plane. Unless you have a connecting flight, do not talk to the people at the gate, they can't help you. Either go online or call NWA for help."

Slight problem.

One nice thing about being silver elite at NWA is I have a special number. So while we walk back to our car (it is a long walk shuttle, plenty of time), I call the number, which takes two times to get through, and ask what we can do about.

"Mr. Cohen, your flight has been rescheduled for 8 PM tomorrow night. Does that work for you?" Well, the wedding is at 6 PM. If the flight is on time, we'll get to the hotel by 10 PM, and only have to leave for the airport again in 9 hours.

Now there is a problem.

Still, the agent worked on it, and got us two seats for an 8:50 AM flight to a different airport in NWC (Laguardia, instead of JFK).

We get the car, paying $9 plus food for the privileged of hanging out at the airport. We decide to enjoy ourselves and go out to dinner, which was fun. Then we go home and sleep. The children stayed at Grandma's. They were really looking forward to the sleepover.

All that was nothing next to what happened to my other relatives. It took them twelves hours to get from Atlanta to NYC, with five of it on the ground in Philly, with no food, water, or escape. And when they landed at NYC, they couldn't get to a gate for another hour. They reached the hotel at 11:30 PM Friday night.

So compared to them, our flight was fine!

We got in early enough to hang out with our friends before the wedding. It was like a mini high school reunion! We walked around, had lunch, and chatted a ton.

The wedding in the evening was nice too.

And, fortunately, the flight was uneventful, except it took us 90 minutes to get off the runway. There was an incredibly long line of planes that we were stuck behind.

But hey, it was New York. And now we are home, and everyone still very happy!