After an especially horrific airport day beginning with a delayed flight to Minneapolis (bad weather) and a rebook of the second leg due to our late arrival (the new flight was scheduled to leave a mere 6 hours after originally scheduled takeoff) where I was bumped (boo hiss!) from first class, I spent a joyless 3+ hours on the tarmac due to a variety of unfortunate circumstances but finally I have arrived in Tampa, FL. It is 3:30 am here and I should be sleeping seeing as I'm expected at the local office at 8:30 but I'm a bit keyed up.

The thing about flights that don't go as planned is this: YES, it sucks when your plans are derailed by weather, technical malfunctions, or flight attendants who've suddenly gone "illegal". YES it sucks to be totally at the mercy of things you can't control. YES you've got a meeting/wedding/hair appt/bah mitzvah that this will make you late for or miss entirely.

Key item is so does everyone else. The flight attendant who is replacing the "illegal" instead of going home to see her kids. The janitor who has to wait for your flight to arrive before he can go home. The fuel truck guys, the de-icers, the landing people who stand in the sleet and snow and direct your plane where to go. The pilots, the desk people, the baggage handlers, and of course, the ticketed passengers. It sucks for everybody and that guy two rows back who is pitching a fit has lost all sense of these facts and is making the people around him increasingly uncomfortable, which is unfortunate considering the 3+ hours we've been waiting were already making us tense.

I experience the nightmare that is airline travel A LOT. I grin and bear it, as they say, because I know I'm not the only one having a bad day and I've accepted my inability to change the situation through anger or tears (ok, but only once and everyone deserves a mulligan).

GOOD NIGHT TAMPA!