Current Ramblings
Sunday, December 26, 2004
Well, fuck.
How has your Christmas trip gone, Jenni? Well, let me tell you...
Thursday we were up at 6AM, knowing that the horrible snow and ice storm in Ohio meant we were going to want extra time to get to the airport for our 10:30 flight. As it turned out, it took an hour and fifteen minutes just to get the car drivable and out of the parking lot, not including my trek to Kroger on foot to get spray de-icer and cat food, not taking into account the real posibility that Kroger would be closed. Stupid weather. The trip to the airport itself was blissfully uneventful, since I'm well-versed in driving in several inches of snow and the main highway across town was somewhat well-plowed. We got there, found a spot left in the long-term lot, and took a shuttle to the terminal. We got to the gate without much incident and settled in for the hour or so before our flight.
And that was about when things went all to hell.
When we got there, there were already several people from a previous flight to Dulles that had been cancelled due to mechanical problems who were getting on our flight instead. And then it turned out the plane for our flight wasn't going to show up, so they were going to fix the previous plane and use that for our flight, which would delay things for about four hours. Yay. We hung around a bit longer, went to have lunch around 12:30, and by the time we got back the unofficial word was the flight - in fact, all of United's flights to Dulles for the day - was now cancelled. We stood in line for probably well over an hour at the counter while they tried to work people onto other flights. At that point I decided that I was going to talk to my mom about renting a car and driving rather than going home and waiting for a flight the next day, since I had extremely little confidence in the airline's ability to get us out the next day any more than that day. But we got up to the front of the line and the guy at the desk found us seats on a flight to National on Delta leaving at 5. Woo! So we got our tickets, picked up our bags downstairs, checked in at the Delta counter, and once again settled in for a couple hours waiting for our plane to leave. But before long, of course, that flight was delayed, until 7PM, because of problems with the arriving plane. Around 4:30 I decided to go poke around the book shops to kill time, and I only got as far as the nearest one when Graham came up to me and said the flight had been cancelled, and that there were no more flights heading anywhere near DC for the rest of the day. Well, fuck.
So I got on the phone with my mom, talked to her, had Graham talk to her because I was really upset, checked rates at the Budget rental counter, and by 5:30 we were on our way out of Columbus in a nice new Chevy Classic. (Why didn't I just take my own car? Well, we still ideally have a return flight, my car's had a bad case of belt-squealy lately, and my parents paid for the rental.) We stopped in a small but nice EconoLodge in Morgantown, West Virginia, about halfway into the trip, and got a good night's sleep before setting off at 7 Christmas Eve morning. The drive went pretty well, and we finally made it to my parents' house around 11:30 - long after we should have been there, but still sooner than if we had placed our faith in the airlines for another day.
But that's not all!
On the way here I stopped at a gas station and got a ham sandwich for "breakfast" around 9AM, just wanting something in my stomach to tide me over until we got there and had lunch with my family. And I think that's the most likely cause of the violent food poisoning that hit me around 12:30 Christmas Eve night, waking me up hourly in a horrible chain of vomiting and diarrhea that cleaned me out pretty thoroughly by the time the rest of the family was ready to open presents. It more or less subsided once I didn't have anything left in me, but I'll just say I still had to get up in the middle of typing this to throw up again. I think I'm gonna try to stick to Gatorade for the rest of the day, and maybe if we actually get home tonight I'll be able to work tomorrow. With the time off I'm taking for the New Year's party later this week, I don't want to have to take sick days, too. Though if we don't actually get home tonight it's kind of a moot point.
But I'm still glad to have been able to spend Christmas with my family, even if fate has been determined to make it as painful as possible.
posted@12:10 PM by:Trixter: 0 comments