The small business of getting there

NEWARK, N.J.–I played roulette with the airline system, and boy, she chewed me up and spit me out. Okay, so it’s not as malicious as that, and I had known connecting in Newark was just asking for trouble, but still. So, I get to National Airport early today, to see if I can get on an earlier flight out west. The best they do is get me an earlier flight to Newark, but I’ll still be on the same connection onward to San Francisco, which means a longer layover. Okay, I say. Then it began.

Due to some emergency at Newark, the airspace was being restricted, flights were being delayed, and we sit in the plane on the tarmac in D.C., and wait. And wait. For two freakin’ hours. It’ll be okay, I think, since I have that huge time window. Well, the minutes tick by as the window narrows to nothing. Finally I arrive, and have missed the last connecting flight to San Francisco. The customer service agent who helps me in the terminal is a trooper, though; she tries every possible combination of flights, even first to LAX then SFO, but everything has already left or is sold out. She books me on the next available non-stop tomorrow morning, which gets me into SFO at about 10 a.m.

So here I am in the tiny business center at the Hilton Newark Airport, where I’ve taken up lodging for the night. (I’ve slept inside Newark Airport before, and wasn’t going to put myself through that again.)

Okay, the consolation is I’ll be home in time for Thanksgiving lunch. I’m a-comin’, Ma!