Anabasis

My plane back to St Louis got in the air on time yesterday but one of the chassis didn’t lift. We flew around for 40 minutes to burn off fuel, disembarked, waited for another 2 hours while the slow-motion workers of American Airlines prepared the new plane, got on the new plane, rolled away from the gate and. . . heard the pilot announce that we had missed our time window and according to federal regulations it was too late to fly. 

Of course, people started screaming “Fuck the fed!” but that didn’t help. So we disembarked again and stood waiting in line for Customer Service for another 2 hours. I had to observe the extremely slow workers first abuse an elderly Jew and then a Muslim woman with a baby. The woman started to cry when the workers began to scoff at her and the baby’s passports.

When it was finally my turn, I found out that they wanted me to stay until next evening and wait for a plane to North Carolina. So obviously I walked away and had N buy me a ticket with another airline for an early morning direct flight. It’s good to be able to afford it since I have zero reason to believe I’ll be reimbursed for anything. 

So now I’m waiting for plane number three.