Dew in a Desert

Heading home having missed a flight.  Like the old gospel song says, “It’s nobody’s fault but mine.”  I had all day to plan but I always leave it to the last minute and this time it really caught me and slapped me around.  I ran right out into a ton of traffic.  It cost me an extra twelve minutes or so and that was the difference.

My cab driver did the best he could.  Though he might have done better.  But again, it wasn’t his fault. I tried to be slick and check-in on line ahead of time but even though I did, they sent me an email suggesting it still wasn’t complete  and though they didn’t say so I reckoned it was because I was already too late to officiate.  I got to the airport only about four minutes after they close up the United counter and switch it over to some other carrier.  Once I realized there was not one from United left, there where they should have been, I knew I was in trouble.  “You need to go down to the second floor and find them there.”  Oh dear.

Frantic, I found the elevator and went to a mysterious warren of rooms that twisted around in all directions.  "Where’s United?  Where’s United?"  I found ANA’s office and they sent me that-a-way.  On and on I went, checking doors, all the while knowing that my chance of finding making the flight was evaporating like dew in a desert.

I burst in and downloaded a litany of pleas in Chinese.  It was clear I’d never be allowed on.  I pressed and pressed and they tried, but it was clear they’d never get my luggage on the plane in under fifty minutes.  I’d have to consider what else was possible.  They found me a flight on United through Chicago the next day. But it involved a ten-hour lay over. Drag.  I searched and searched for alternatives?  Did I want to fly through Qatar or Addis Ababa?  But the United reconnect was paid for and I resigned myself to going home, crestfallen to accept all the teasing that I knew would be coming my way. 

Sunday 3/17/19