Coming Home

The day I left Colorado, thunder storms moving into the Dallas area were apparently causing all sorts of disruptions at DFW. Naturally, I didn't know any of this when I arrived at the airport 2 hours ahead of my 10AM flight. I was just excited to see my little Pumpkin again!!

First thing I noticed upon entering the airport was that the earlier flight to Dallas had been delayed from 8:00 to 9:00AM. The 10AM flight was still on time; I had only a small carry-on, and I'd already checked in from home so I decided to kill some time by checking out the fancy airport shops. (I found the funniest little onesie that said "Nobody puts Baby in the Corner." Hilarious! Unfortunately, the damn thing was not only pink, it also cost $30 so I just gently set it back down and appeased myself by purchasing an "I Love Sushi" baby bib, haha.)

By the time I ambled over to my gate well ahead of schedule (or so I thought), info on the monitors had changed and was now indicating that the earlier Dallas flight had been moved back to 10AM while my flight was delayed until 11:30AM! My connection in Dallas was scheduled to depart at 2:30PM (1:30PM MST). I knew I wouldn't make it if I stayed on my own flight so I ran over to the gate for the earlier flight to see about getting on stand-by with them. The gate was deserted when I arrived, and I had to wait nearly 30 minutes for a gate attendant. By the time she showed up, I'd already contacted Frontier on the phone and confirmed that there were plenty of empty seats available for stand-by. When I asked the gate attendant; however, she rudely proceeded to explain that they'd gotten the flight out on time, the monitors must be wrong, and that I should really be elsewhere if I intended to go to Dallas (as if I was supposed to have divined that information from the sky).

By this time, it was nearly 10AM. I was worried that perhaps the monitors were wrong about my flight as well, and that they'd have started boarding so I rushed back to my original gate only to find...a scene of mass confusion. It seemed the plane was in, but departure was still going to be delayed until 11:30. What's more, they were asking for volunteers to reschedule for another day in exchange for $400 of flight credit. Though I would've loved to have taken the $400, I knew I'd end up losing money if I had to reschedule both this flight and my connection on American Airlines so I decided to work on alternatives. QT was supposed to be on his way to Wyoming that same day, and I further worried I'd be stuck at either DIA or DFW if I didn't come up with a plan before he left.

In desperation, I called my dad and asked him to talk to his friends over at their local American Airlines counter to see if they could possibly rebook me on a later flight (for free, of course ;). While I was on the phone, I looked over to the other side of the concourse and noticed that the earlier flight to Dallas, the one I'd tried to get on, was still posted on a gate across the way from us! Not only that, they were boarding passengers as I watched!! I ran over there only to discover that they had actually taken off on time but had to return to the airport due to some technical difficulties. They were just getting ready to leave again but were actually oversold and had no space for stand-by. Total bummer. At least, this explained why they were looking for people to rebook from my flight.

I sat down and got to thinking. All around me, I could hear snippets of conversation from other people on my flight who were also trying to rearrange their plans. I overheard one man talking on the phone about not being on time to visit his grandmother in the hospital. Yeek! I quickly borrowed a fellow passenger's pen and called info for American Airlines' 1-800 number. The AA service rep was really nice and explained that my 2:30 flight out of DFW had also been delayed due to bad weather so there was a chance I'd still make it. If not, the next flight out was only about half-full so I could take that one if necessary. He said if I handled it over the phone, there'd be a fee for changing flights, but it'd be free if I simply waited until I arrived at DFW and got on as stand-by. Kind of a risky proposition to fly into any old city on the off-chance that one will find a flight out, but I thought the odds sounded good so I accepted.

A few minutes later, I called AA again to find out when their last flight to my final destination was that day, y'know, j.i.c. I discovered that there were 2 more flights out that day, and both still had plenty of space; however, the 2:30 flight had just been canceled so now I'd be jockeying with the rest of those displaced passengers for the available space on those 2 later flights. Bummer. In my earlier wanderings, I'd noticed a Frontier service counter right beside our gate. I decided to go and try my luck with them. I wanted to see if Frontier would be willing to pony up the fee for rescheduling my missed connection. Since this was a weather-related delay, I figured they wouldn't, but hey, I wasn't doing anything else, right?

The Frontier rep was pleasant enough, and she even called AA to see what they could work out for rebooking my missed flight. In her words, AA unfortunately "wasn't playing well with the other kids in the sandbox" meaning, unlike most other airlines, AA didn't have any agreements to honor other airlines' tickets, so basically, I was out of luck. My best bet was to simply eat the rebooking fee myself, but I was hungry and tired and feeling kind of reckless by then so I opted to take my chances on stand-by...at DFW. After leaving the service desk, I had just enough time left to go buy myself a sandwich before boarding was set to begin. Finally.

Our flight left at 11:30 as promised, but we were forced to circle around the storm a few times before we could land so we didn't actually make it to DFW until about 3PM CST. Upon landing, I rushed over to the counter for the next flight and made my way into the line of people waiting to see the gate attendant. It turned out that there had been quite a few cancellations at DFW that morning, and all the AA gate attendants in our concourse were busily trying to reschedule passengers from the canceled flights. Having eaten, I felt alright again...calm even, but it was easy to see that tempers were beginning to flare all around me. I saw lots of scowling angry faces, heard lots of yelling and lots of heavy sighing, etc etc. One mom was yelling at her kid for daring to walk around in a circle while waiting in line (fortunately, the kids' dad was also there trying to calm the lady down, and she actually seemed to make a visible effort to chill out when she noticed I was watching her....I dunno...perhaps it's obvious I'm a social worker??...hehe).

The gate attendant was surprised that I hadn't already been rebooked on the phone since my flight was one of those canceled, but she wasted no more time in wondering about it. She quickly rebooked me for the later flight, handed me my boarding pass, and told me the new gate assignment. I was so relieved. I hadn't even realized how worried I was about getting stranded until I finally held that golden ticket in my hand. I celebrated my good fortune by buying myself a frozen yogurt cone. Mmm good!

I called my mom to tell her my new arrival time, then of course, I started to feel ill. Damn sugary yogurt cone. I'd been hoping to make it all the way home without having to eat again so that I could dine at my parents' restaurant that evening, but it was no go for me. I rushed over to the nearest restaurant and bought a turkey sandwich to go. It was dry and yucky, but at least it was edible (or mostly anyway). I conceded by eating only half so that I could still have something yummy at my parents' restaurant. :)

When I'd talked to my mom, I kept reminding her that I hadn't checked any luggage and would be ready to go right off the plane (i.e. please be on time!). My parents actually arrived at the airport on time, so naturally, my plane landed nearly an hour behind schedule! As I walked down the jetway from the plane, fuming, I realized that after 10 hours of delays and countless frustrations, I'd finally hit my limit. I didn't want anything to mar my reunion with Pumpkin so I called QT to vent. He was very understanding, of course, and I felt better just having said it out loud. As I rode the escalator down, I could see Pumpkin hopping around downstairs happily crying "My mommy's here! My mommy's here!" The look on his face was simply priceless, as I'm sure the one on mine was as well. He rushed over to me and gave me the biggest hug ever...still wearing that ecstatic look on his face. 10 hours? Frustration? Bah! I needn't have worried. All my troubles were forgotten and the universe righted the minute I held my little boy in my arms again. :)