The Adventures Begin

7/15/2018:

Five minutes. A lot can happen in less time than that. You can win the lottery in less than five minutes, have a conversation with a stranger who ends up being your life-long friend in five minutes, or miss a flight and have to deal with a crap load of problems from Delta in five minutes.  You know I didn’t win the lottery (or you’d all be flying with me to catch a party on an island somewhere).  I’ve met and became friends with many of you in less than five minutes.  And yes, D and I missed our connecting flight in exactly five minutes.  A lot of crap followed after that.

They said it was the weather, but the flight was a smooth ride, sunny skies all the way to New York.  I then spent the day begging and pleading with Delta to find another flight. They finally decided to send me on an Italian plane, but the Italians looked at our Delta vouchers and threw it back at us. “We can’t touch this,” said the little itty-bitty, half-balding Air Atalia guy in disgust. “You need to go back to Delta. They need to issue you a ticket. We can’t do anything with THAT.”

I’m not going to bore you with our four-hour ordeal of trying to find a solution to a problem Delta said they would initially take care of if something like this should happen. We had an hour to connect.  They said not to worry.  They said they would take care of everything IF anything should happen and we miss the connection.

We missed the connection.  Then they shooed us away.  The weather is not part of the deal apparently.  But I will tell you, after going from one Delta counter to the next and finding no resolution, they found me crumbled on my knees on the floor crying like a baby. I had been traveling since 5 am.  It was 9 pm by then and I had lost it.  They must have taken some pity on us because all I remember after that was checking my phone before putting my head on a pillow in a dingy hotel room.  It was 12:37am.

7/16/18:

Yesterday was a very bad day.  I should have known it would be when the 40-something year old guy sitting next to me started picking his nose and wiping the flakes off of his tray as he played his screen games. I cursed my fate when he added fidgeting and rubbing his chest vigorously to his repertoire. But when he overheard me telling the flight attendant we had fifteen minutes to catch our connection, this man, who I had secretly labeled as ‘gross’ and ‘psychotic’ earlier in my mind, rose to retrieve our bags from the overhead bin and, in a strong and manly voice announced to all to please move out of the way as these two “young ladies” need to catch a flight NOW.  I believe the ordeals we encountered yesterday was a result of my mean thoughts towards this man. I know I was punished for my unkindly thinking behavior, and serves me right for doing so.

Today is a new day.  I have sworn off all unkindly thoughts of anyone.

I have resigned myself to whatever comes.  So far so good.  We are on a plane to Malaga!  Finally.