No Way Airlines

i guess i've been pretty lucky when it comes to flying. i've rarely had a flight delayed, and i think i've only ever had one flight canceled outright. so the complaining that ensues is really much closer to spoiled brat whining, but i'm going to share it nonetheless.

so i'm flying back from seann and elizabeth's wedding (in houston), and i have to fly to memphis and then to nashville. "but david," you might ask "didn't you leave nineveh in jackson? and isn't memphis only an hour from jackson whereas nashville is two hours from jackson? why would you just fly directly from houston to memphis and drive to jackson to get nineveh?" such a reasonable question with an answer that is anything but reasonable: it's roughly twice as expensive to fly directly from memphis to houston than to fly from nashville to memphis to houston, and that's with gas as a variable!

so the flight from houston to memphis was delayed - no biggie. they projected that we would take off in plenty of time to make my connection. well, how glad i was when we actually were set to take off earlier than anticipated. piece of cake. but then, there was weather. it started drizzling in houston. i know - big panic. texas isn't used to rain. but seriously - i didn't see lightning once or anything serious. yet according to our pilot, the entire airport closed down. this was a little fishy considering the fed ex planes taking off left and right on the runways beside us as well as the american airlines planes three of which took off while we sat grounded.

finally we got the "okay" from God or whoever makes the rain, and we took off. it was gonna be close. well, we landed with about twenty minutes for me to get to my nashville bound plane. i wasn't really that concerned because the memphis airport isn't that colossal, and i knew it fairly well. but here comes the best part: they had made us check anything larger than a hamster at the planeside check-in thingy. well, normally that wouldn't be so big a deal because they typically just throw those bags up on the gate platform (bridge? i don't know air terms) and you grab em as you deplane (i know that one!). well, not this time. i guess because we had been delayed, and things weren't so hot they thought they'd be extra courteous to us and put all our bags on that little elevator thingy and pull it right up to the gate. only problem is, that really screwed most of the people who had mere minutes to make the next flight because it took them SO LONG to get the bags on that thing and get it around there. i was literally standing there with people who were saying "and i just missed my flight" when they clearly would have had time to make it had the people with the bags been equipped with basic reasoning and logic.

so i got my bags with literally one minute to make my plane. i sprinted from terminal a to terminal b (in chacos mind you) and saw my gate. no one was there. i yelled at the next gate down something that sounded like "tha mah play" (i'm not a sprinter). someone came over and quickly called the plane and told them to wait - he was truly helpful, and i wish i had tipped him. he ended up opening the door of the plane for me (unassailably cool i think).

so yeah, i ended up making the flight - and i kinda felt like batman...a batman with burning lungs.

so here's the part where you get to play along. i won't give the name of the airline i flew and won't fly again - but the initials are NWA. so you try and come up with a slogan wittier than mine (shouldn't be hard).