Early to be late

If you're not early, you're late...

That's why we arrived at the airport at 10:00 a.m. The flight was scheduled to depart at noon. Things began most auspiciously when we got to go through the TSA pre-check security line, instead of the general strip-and-cough-for-the-x-ray-machine line. It was quick and almost painless.

When we located our departure gate, I recognized the petite woman at the counter from my previous flight with this airline some nine months earlier. That flight had been delayed; I had spent a great deal of time in lines and on the telephone trying to re-book alternate flights for the missed connection in Chicago. That time, my flight had not actually been delayed; the flight to San Francisco had been delayed, and the airline then cancelled my flight and used my plane to fly those people to SF. Ironically, when I was done with re-booking, my new flight plan took me via SF...several hours later. On this flight, we were already scheduled go via SF.

Not only was Rachel petite, she wore her dark hair in a short bob (I realize a bob cut is short. I'm not being redundant; her hair was cut in a short bob, as opposed to a long bob or a medium bob--which reminds me of my cousin Bob; he's rather a medium Bob; although his hair isn't long enough even for a bob; although it is long enough for him, and he is a Bob). But back to Rachel; she looked like a French girl to me. About an hour from the scheduled time of departure, Rachel made an announcement over the loudspeaker about the flight. At the end of the information, she coyly slipped in that our "wheels up" time would be 1:54. We were all momentarily stunned. We were like the pre-teen boy blissfully playing on the playground equipment whose friend points out to him that his arm is bleeding; he has no idea what caused the wound, and has felt no pain until the blood is brought to his attention. As with the child, after the stun, the crying began. Our departure would be nearly 2 hours late. Rachel never did mention the word "delay"...until people asked for clarification. Then she admitted that our flight would be 2 hours late because of some repairs to the runway in SF. Apparently with the runway restrictions in SF, we could not be cleared for departure until SF gave the okay because of the critical importance of being able to land once we arrived at SF. So much for the auspicious beginning.

Naturally, I began to think about the connection problem. A two-hour flight to SF would have us landing at exactly the same time that our connecting flight to Paris would be taking off. I decided, as had several others, that I needed to talk to Rachel about this. (For clarification, the several others didn't decide that I needed to talk to Rachel; they had decided that they needed to talk to Rachel). The guy in the line ahead of me told Rachel that he was on flight number X to Paris from SF and could she please solve for Y. No. Actually, he gave the flight number and asked about the likelihood of still being able to make the connection. I overheard him, and quickly interjected myself into the conversation, stating that I was also on flight X to Paris. Rachel told us that they would probably hold the plane to Paris for us as there were other passengers from other delayed aircraft making connections with that flight. The word "probably" bothered me. It bothered me a great deal. It's one step up from "maybe" toward "yes," but it's still uncertain. Imagine a Venn diagram of two overlapping circles with "yes" on one side and "no" on the other, would the overlap be "maybe" or "probably"? Is it both "yes" and "no"? Is it both "yes" and "no" until someone opens the box to see if the cat is alive? Maybe.

Rachel explained that we could re-book the connection from SF. There were no other direct flights to Paris from SF, but flights via Frankfurt, or Munich, or London, or some other place could be used. However, all of those options except the one to Frankfurt would result in the loss of another day traveling. She told us to wait until we had more information about the SF flight before re-booking. So we waited...until someone finally opened the box...the cat was dead. New departure time: 2:55. They weren't going to hold our flight to Paris for an hour for just the four of us. We re-booked via Frankfurt.

On the bright side, we did get to meet Jim and Nancy, the other couple flying to Paris. Thanks to Jim's dogged determination (read harassment), Rachel booked us all with seats together on the overseas flight, and gave us seats nearer to the front on the flight to SF; our original seats had been in the very back of the plane in the "expendable" section.

Next time: Our adventure at the SF airport, and the reveal on whether we had flowers in our hair.