Still in transit

THE PLAN: Depart Orange County at 8:05 AM; arrive in NYC around 4:30 PM; arrive in Rochester at 7:40 PM.

THE REALITY:

4:40 AM: I awake, twenty minutes earlier than necessary, from a rather bizarre nightmare involving a survival horror video game.  I devoutly hope that this will not turn out to be a prophetic dream about today's flight.

6:50 AM: My parents drop me off at Long Beach Airport, where I see very long lines for Jet Blue. 

7:10 AM: I survive long lines for Jet Blue, then arrive at the gate, where I stock up on a non-gourmet sandwich.  

c. 7:20 AM: Our 8:05 AM flight has magically turned into a 9:05 AM flight, thanks to a window malfunction.

c. 8:00 AM: And now our 9:05 AM flight is at 9:30.  Sounds resembling GRAR can be heard.

c. 8:30 AM: We have a new plane! We're still going to be late!  I ask my mother to relay a message to the colleague (whose phone # I have forgotten) who was going to pick me up at the airport, suggesting that maybe that won't be such a great idea.

c. 9:00 AM: ...And now we're going to depart at 10:00 AM.  

c. 9:10 AM: The oh-so-chipper gate agent is reassuring us that we're going to get in around 5:45 PM.  5:30, even!  No need to worry about our connecting flights!

Uh-huh.

c. 10 AM: Well, we're on the plane.  Too bad it's not in the air.

10:40 AM: Now that we're off the ground, the pilot tells us that we'll be in NYC around 6:15 PM or so.  I hear an odd sound, as of a connection being busted.  

(We now switch to Eastern time.)

4:00 PM: I finish reading Bengtsson's The Long Ships.  I usually don't like adventure novels, but this one is engagingly wry: there's no overt commentary from the narrator on the bloodthirstiness of his characters, but the effect is one of extreme dark comedy.  Nevertheless, all this head-cracking has tired me out, so I doze off.

6:00 PM: Finally, we're in New York State! Now, if only we were not entering a holding pattern!

And hold we do, for another hour.  So much for a 6:15 PM arrival.

c. 7:30 PM: I'm off the plane.  A gate agent tells me to run to gate 9, in the company of a lot of other people.  At gate 9, there is...no plane.  I sigh.  Another agent books me onto the 10:45 flight, which will get me into Rochester after midnight.  This assumes that nothing else goes wrong, of course...

Comments

[Sir Orang-Outang]

Outside your speciality period, but perhaps The Unfortunate Traveller would have been more appropriate reading.