Never Again Airlines

So, you can see how much good it did to get up at 4:30am to get into the cab by 5am to get to the airport by 5:30am to slog through the bag check line and then the security line, so that it would be easy to make the 7am flight.

The big mistake that Plot and Duck made was not to take the lady up on the offer to transfer over to another plane that was leaving at 8am for LA, and then would head directly to JFK, plus they'd give you $300 each to do it.

But Plot figured: Hell. Right now, they're announcing our plane will leave at 8:20. What happens if that other plane has trouble or there's a problem at LAX? So, they turned it down. Five people rushed the counter, received their vouchers and new tickets, ran for the other gate and were probably in New York by late afternoon.

The next second after the voucher offer was off the table, they changed the 8:20am takeoff delay to 9:20am. And then to 10am. And then 12:05. And then 1:05.

Did we mention that the Duck, in the cab on the way to the airport, contracted stomach flu? So she had to wait for 6 1/2 hours at SFO looking and feeling miserable and running back and forth to the ladies room every few minutes.

Meanwhile, we met Siggie.

He was the kind of guy who is really fascinating for half an hour -- an eighty year old one-armed, partially-legged German from Australia who was traveling by himself to JFK and then to Rio and then onto a ship to the Falkland Islands and lower Patagonia, and then onto another ship across the Beagle Channel to Antarctica.

For the next six hours he wouldn't stop talking. Plotnik kept getting up in the middle of his long winded tales about his ex wife in the Mercedes dealership. Duck would be left to cope with this nice but - lonely? - man while she labored not to pass out. Then Plot would come back and Duck would disappear.

What makes people glom onto you at an airport and then talk talk talk talk talk? 5H and BZ say this happens to them all the time.

But he was a nice guy so Plot hopes he got to his ship on time.

What had happened, by the way, was the first plane broke down so they needed to find another plane. But Never Again Airlines (recently known as American) didn't have any planes that weren't already in use so they had to track one down. The did, in a hanger in LA. By the time that plane could assemble a crew and fly up to SFO, several hours had passed.

But it was a smaller plane. That's why they let the earlier 5 people escape.

Then: the new plane also malfunctioned. Un - be - freaking- believable! Finally, they flew the new part up, also from LA, and fixed the first plane. The plane was due in at 3pm. We got in at 10.

THEN: THE FREAKING SNEAKING CLINKING LUGGAGE CAROUSEL BROKE DOWN! NOBODY WOULD FIX IT! NOBODY CARED! Plotnik seethed.

Next to him, a father, who had been waiting at the airport all day for his son, and the son, who had been waiting with Plot and Duck and everybody else all day, got into a rip roaring fight about the luggage carousel. Finally, the son said to the Dad: "DAD! STOP IT! WE'RE HAVING A NEW YORK FIGHT! I MOVED AWAY! STOP IT!"

The bag finally came, PD picked Plot and Duck up, and off to Brooklyn we went.

This morning BZ and Plottie walked for bagels. The world is back in its place and Duck feels a lot better today.