Alternative Holiday Traditions

Putting up the tree, Christmas shopping, etc etc. Everyone has a holiday tradition that signals Christmas day being imminent. For me, its the mad flight back home.

This morning for the flight at Detroit Metro, I started off with 8" high snow, my cab twisting in the slick, slippery, unsalted pavement. It was going to take 45 minutes the cabby said, 15 minutes longer than usual.

It was OK, I thought silently, the flight was an hour late anyway. Hundreds of other flights were canceled or delayed or rerouted what with the unfriendly weather.

When I got to the boarding gate, I beheld a completely barren, completely flat, completely white tarmac. You could have mistaken it for a frozen lake. The plane was not even there when the boarding staff were already starting to ask for volunteers as the flight was overbooked. 5pm flight to Newark, the lady said, with transportation to La Guardia and a $250 flight coupon. Since I have not paid for a single flight I've taken in more than 8 years, this was not an inducement.

After about an hour, I saw my plane slowly making it's way to the boarding gate, like a tired musician walking up to a microphone. I'm just about as beat as you Mr Airplane, I thought. I just want to go home too. We got on the plane and waited for it to be de-iced and all that extra cr@p you had to do during winter.

After about another hour, we were in the sky. Blocked sinuses expanded in the pressurized interior of the plane, and I was getting a headache. Maybe it was hunger, but it was most likely the sinuses. I took a nap, which always made the ordeal go faster.

When I woke up, I felt the airplane depressurize, but out the window was pure white. It could not be clouds at this altitude, I thought, so it must be fog. When we were low enough, I was surprised at how quickly New York was transformed from the regular shades of gray, to black and white, snow covered ornaments. This was the only upside of the trip.

When we landed, there was of course no gate available for us, so it was another hour and a half of waiting for one to open up. When everything was said and done, door to door I traveled for more than 8 hours. That like a drive from NYC to Niagara Falls.

But at least that holiday tradition is done for the year, and I'm home and dry.