April 7, 2006
My trip to Arkansas went great. All the events were wonderful, and it all went well.
Until I went to leave…….
My ride to the airport flaked. I’d hung out with him the previous day, he seemed cool, and said he’d wake up for sure. His name was Adam. Adam said he’d leave his cell phone on.
I woke up 6 AM Wednesday at morning after sleeping 90 minutes. My flight was at 8:20, almost an hour drive away. Adam was supposed to pick me up in front of the hotel at 6:20 AM.
I called Adam. No answer. I called his girlfriend. No answer. I called Adam five more times, no answer. I called his girlfriend three more times and she finally answered at 6:25. She said Adam didn’t have a land line, but she’d drive over and wake him up. Said she lived near him, and he was ten minutes from my hotel.
I checked out of the hotel and went and waited out front in the cold. At 6:45 I called her again, she said, "Oh, I forgot, I lent Adam my car so he could drive you. I guess I’ll wake my roommate up and see if I can borrow her car so I can drive over and wake him up."
At 7 AM, I went back into the hotel and had them call a taxi for me. At 7:05, Adam called me, totally apologetic. He’d just gotten up, and his gal wasn’t there yet. I told him I’d called a taxi, but it wasn’t here yet. He said, "I can get there quick. I’ll leave right now. At 7:15, the taxi came, and I got in it. We headed in the rain to the airport. I called Adam at 7:20, told him not to come. He said, "I’m almost there dude, I had to take a few minutes to gather up some CDs of my band that I want to give you." I said, "Never mind. I’m on my way to the airport" and hung up.
The ride to the airport was interesting. The van driver had a trainee, and they were playing with knives and passing them back and forth. They were barely watching the wet road. One of them was cleaning the vanity mirror, wiping what looked like speed residue off of it.
I said, "I’m taking a nap, wake me up when we get there please" and laid down. I looked up and noticed dried blood on one of the windows inside the van.
The hick driver drove like a maniac, and got me there at 7:45. The fare was 40 bucks. I gave him 50. I ran to my gate. They checked me in. The woman called me "ma’am" (is my hair THAT long? No one’s called me "ma’am" for a decade.) I ran down to my gate. THAT WOMAN called me ma’am also! Jesus….
I ran onto the plane, just as it was taking off. I strapped myself in, took a nap, and figured my problems were over.
Two hours into the flight, we had some heavy wind issues. Went into a holding pattern, and had to make an unscheduled landing to refuel in Grand Junction, Colorado. We were allowed to get off the plane. All of us spent an hour milling around on the tiny runway, but were not allowed to go inside the airport. The scenery was nice though.
We finally got up in the air again. I missed connecting flight in Salt Lake City. I had a four-hour layover. The new flight to Burbank encountered a lot of turbulence too. Three people went in the bathroom and threw up. (Of course, I was in the furthest back seat, and could smell it.)
It was 14 hours from the time I left the hotel to the time I got home.
It was the most trying day of travel I've ever had. I could have flown to Paris in less time than that.
This was the worst day of air travel I've ever had, and I travel a lot. I wrote Delta a letter telling them my problems and asked for a free ticket anywhere in the US. No answer back yet.
Here’s a photo of me, completely wrecked, when I arrived in Burbank. I’m standing in front of the most tasteless billboard I’ve ever seen. It’s an ad for a drug rehab, using a photo of the late Chris Farley. Chris died of drugs. His family authorized use of his photo for this.
Michael W. Dean