Flight From Hell

A week ago today I made the trip from home to Rye, NH. I had no idea what I was in for, but was ready for a change.

I had flown to and from New York state a couple of times with no problems. I heard friends and family talk about their nightmare flights and thought that they were exaggerating. Until, I experienced my own flight from hell.

My plane was to leave MEM at 10:30. By 11:00 we all realized that we weren't leaving on time. No plane in sight. Just about the time we all start grabbing our phones and accessing the airlines website, we notice the staff was also realizing that they probably needed to check on our flight (they were busy chatting off to the side). It appeared that our plane left Chicago at 10:30 and obviously was not going to be here in time.

So, I'm stuck at MEM for an hour and a half waiting on our plane. No cigarettes and time to kill. I had $10 to my name and spent $8 of that on a pack of smokes and couldn't afford a lighter. There is only one place to smoke in MEM. Luckily there were several smokers in the club with lighters and were willing to share.

All the time I'm trying to store up suck in as much nicotine as possible and thinking that my 2 hour layover in Chicago was going to be cut pretty short. I haven't been to ORD so I didn't know the layout or where I was even suppose to catch the next flight. I could see me running through the airport like OJ in those luggage commercials. Leaping over bags, small children and trying desperately not to knock over old people. Oh wait, I am one of those old people...

Finally we board our flight and head to Chicago. We land, just as my connecting flight is taking off. Oh joy. My next flight out, 7:30. Five and half hours to kill, a half pack of smokes, no lighter and worse yet - no smoking anywhere at the airport. I'd only had about an hour of sleep in the last 24 so I was afraid to camp somewhere and sleep. I was sure that I'd miss my flight. So I walked. I walked until I thought my feet were going to fall off. MB wired me some money so I bought a lot of coffee, ate some crappy McDonalds, bought a bottled water, lost my sweater and somehow managed to lose the bottle water, too.

When we landed my luggage came pretty quickly, and since we made good time in the air I didn't figure MB was there yet. I sent him a text to let him know I was there and found a smoking station outside. Of course I couldn't find my stupid lighter anywhere in my luggage so I'm bumming lights and lighting my next smoke off the last. Seriously, I smoke a lot but am not a chain smoker.

Thirty minutes later MB calls me. He's in the cellphone lot and has been for the last 30 minutes. He was talking to his brother so he didn't get my text. MB and I usually text each other since actually speaking to each other ends with us fighting. Yes, our divorce was handling via email and text messages. Now I wish I would have called, fight or no fight. At least I wouldn't have been sitting outside of the airport chain smoking because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get a light when I really wanted a cigarette.

I get to the townhouse, dump my stuff, flip off my flops and hit the bed. When I woke the next day, that's when I knew the nightmare was just beginning...