Friday, March 21, 2008

Where's Jess now? Hint: It's not the Midwest

Hey y'all. Yes, I'm keeping my Southern drawl for one more day. Why? Because I'm in Atlanta, instead of Wisconsin, and no this was not by choice.

After another bright and early start today (4:30 a.m. this time). The horrible snow in the Midwest, especially in Illinois and Wisconsin, has stranded me in Atlanta and made me feel like a horrible mother. I say this because my Macbook is still in Wisconsin - where I will not be going now this weekend. Now my baby girl and I won't be together for two weeks. Tear. I was so looking forward to that. I had a name picked out for her and everything!

See below for the full explanation of how I got here (to the airport Sheraton). It's an interesting read.





The saga of how I ended up stuck in Atlanta
By: Jessica

This morning started off great. I blissfully flew from Pensacola to Hot-lanta, and even arrived 15 minutes ahead of schedule! Beautiful! Then dad starts calling with weather updates and that the weather in Wisconsin is really not good, but the airport gate manager assures me that we'll be able to take off and land. More beautiful! Then we board the plane, even though I'm sitting across from this woman with two devil children and am beginning to relax...until the pilot tell us that conditions in Wisconsin no longer allow us to fly right now. So we're delayed about 1.5 hours, no biggie. I work a bit, do some research...it's all good.

Then comes the announcement - our flight has been cancelled. Panicking, everyone runs over to the ticketing booth to reschedule and I call dad in a panic. After a mild fight, resulting in me hanging up on him, I get on the first flight they can confirm me for...tomorrow, but hey I can get my bag back so it's okay. I now head over to the baggage area to claim my bag and I find out that the bag will not be pulled for the claim because it's still headed to Wisconsin on a later flight. Much fighting, name calling and arguing start and I finally start to have a minor meltdown. After about three hours of back-and-forth (including some woman telling me that I am not capable of understanding the full answer to a question, which is why she is giving me the "PR" answer), I get a hotel reservation for overnight and resign myself to the fact that a) I'm spending Easter alone in my apartment and b) I will not get my computer this weekend, but rather in two weeks when I go home for a wedding shower. So now I start to cry (from exhaustion and disappointment) and take one last look for my bag...in a fleeting hope that something will go right. And to my horror (pleasant horror) I see it standing next to a security guard. I scream and claim it, with her providing me helpful directions to the hotel shuttle area. I would have given her an awkward hug if I could have then.

So I checked in at the hotel (painless) and a nice man carried my luggage upstairs. Suddenly the tummy starts rumbling so it's room service and then a traditional "lay down" because now I may as well force myself to stay awake. Whatever I did to deserve this...I'm sorry. It takes a lot for me to say that.

4 comments:

Jamie Lovely said...

Oh my gosh, Jess. This is awful. I'm glad you got your bag. I hope you get home and to your MacBook soon!

Anonymous said...

I'm glad you got your bag. At least being in ATL you missed a pretty crappy snow storm. But I know it's hard to not have that Mac. I couldn't wait.

Bayjb said...

Thanks guys! I'm actually sitting in Atlanta's airport now waiting for my flight. I can hear them boarding an 8 a.m. flight to O'Hare so I'm optimistic. But I'm curious to see this snow now back in Chicago.

Anonymous said...

flying carrots land in dairy farmers basement?