Objective: Following work on “March 4th”, catch 12:40am flight from Seattle and arrive at JFK airport NYC by 10:30am to kick it with my best friends. #cake (I’ve done this hundreds of times)

The plan was simple: To avoid making unnecessary trips on the bus from home –> work –> home –> airport, I was simply going to bring my luggage with me to work to eliminate a timely step of a 2.5 hour bus trip back home to the airport. And as a reward for such a brilliant idea, I incorporated being stupidfacedd drunk by the time I boarded the plane in order to indulge in a pleasant red-eye nights sleep, transfer and be merry in NYC by 11am.

The first half of my plan was executed with Gabby Douglass triple-somersault-turtle-snap-kick perfection. I made it to the airport by 11:45pm Duff beer fountain drunk and hella eager to kick it with my homies in NYC.

I think I’m waiting patiently at my gate until they call my zone then I barge to the front of the line to board. I suavely pull my phone out to be scanned for boarding (you know I’m lightweight high tech and I’m going green by cutting my carbon footprint in half by declining printed boarding passes, so I do it straight from my iphone).

So it scans and it gives a whammy “wrong answer” sounding ass beep. I nonchalantly think to myself, “oh,  its because of this janky low brightness on my phone” so I adjust the brightness and scan again, same morally defeating whammy sounding beep.

The drunk belligerent irritability starts to kick in. “What’s wrong with yall [shit]?” I ask the gatekeeper and she thoroughly looks at it and smugly looks me in the eye and says “It’s because your flight was 24 hours ago…”

*Blank stare* “Huh? Say what?”

“It was 24 hours ago…”

At this point I’m embarrassed because there’s still a line of people behind me that I asshole’ishly jumped in front of to cause this delay, and I felt like an idiot for having even made a simple ass mistake like being 24 hours late for a flight. (I pride myself on being on point like Stacy Adams with anything regarding traveling)

I move to the side of the line to avoid being that (black) guy.

I start to process what was going on and realize the pumpfake I fell for when I originally booked my ticket.

Her: “This actually happens frequently with flights like these.” (Who would’ve thought that the calendar date & time of flights is actually literal? Not this guy)

She tells me to confirm the date on my phone…”12:40am March 4th”. As I’m reading it to myself, she says “since its after 12am, it’s technically the 5th now.” I continue trying to process this witch logic she’s bestowing on me and keep repeating to myself “but today still is kinda the 4th if you don’t think about it literally & technically” at this point I decide to raise the white flag and cooperate for an immediate solution.

It was now that I knew I was entering the twilight zone.

So by the grace of Micheal Jackson, the gatekeeper found me a seat on the outgoing flight but notified me that my transfer flight was all bad because all flights for JFK were cancelled for that morning due to weather conditions

*symbolic cardiac arrest*

but there were still flights going into La Guardia (the other, ugly red headed stepchild airport of NYC)

*symbolic defibrillator – that thing that you put on your chest and say “CLEAR!!!” to bring people back to life*

and I’m like HYFR put me on it!!

*sigh of relief*

*queues up Naughty By Nature – Everything’s Going to Be Alright*

#TBT I also incorporated being stupidfacedd drunk by the time I boarded the plane in order to indulge in a pleasant red-eye nights sleep

As a result of them finding me last minute seat on the flight, it was a middle seat, which is the hardest place to fall asleep for a bigger person due to constricting space. So I ended up being wide awake the entire flight. Oh well, I been through worst, I’ll just take a power nap when I get into town.

 

9 hours and a transfer flight later we are 30 minutes from landing at La Guardia…

The captain of the plane notifies us that our landing time has been delayed due to the de-icing of the runway. I’m like fair enough, I get it, shits cold as fuck outside, I’m willing to sacrifice a few more minutes due to the grace of Michael Jackson getting me a seat on the plane anyway. So we go through the “fly around the airport  in circles” motion.

10 minutes past…20 minutes…45 minutes…(you can hear restless grumbles all throughout the plane)…60 minutes. 75 minutes (how long does it take to f*ckin de-ice a runway? – logic & deductive reasoning does not exist to a sleepy, irritable person)

*Captains voice* The runway has finally been de-iced, we are second in line to land and it should only be a few minutes from now.

15 minutes past

*Captain’s voice* “*sigh*, well folks, I’m sorry for this news but it appears the plane ahead of us has slid off the runway”

*huge, collective grumble from all the passengers*

*Captain’s voice* “We’re being re-routed to Boston for refueling”

At this point I just wanna throw all my papers in the air and say fuck it, but I’m a master of my emotions over things I can’t control and I elect to go through my Woo-Saa rituals and take several deep breaths and hum “Oooohhhhhhmmmmmmm”.

30 minutes later (its 12:15pm now) we land in Boston and the Captain notifies us that all flights going into NYC are cancelled until 8pm. I’m hella ready to start flashing but I go through my self-mastery Woo-Saa rituals again…

*deep breath, “Oooohhhhhhmmmmm”*

I exit the plane and begin to process my options. Think Charles, Think.

Jinkies!!! take the train! I see on movies all the time people taking the train from Boston to NYC, that can be me!

So I scramble info on my phone for Amtrak tix. I find one for $74 leaving in an hour from the Boston train station. I prepare to buy it from my phone and by the time I put my card info in and select buy, I get an error saying “this ticket is no longer available”.

WTF? (keep in mind, all flights, and i mean ALL FLIGHTS from every single airline that was supposed to fly into NYC got re-routed to Boston, so now buying an Amtrak ticket turned into trying to buy some Columbia Blue 11 Jordan’s like it was 5am on a Saturday morning on Footlocker.com)

I scramble through my phone trying to buy tix and everytime the prices would go up and still be sold by the time I try to buy.

I’m like fuck it at this point, I’m just going to head to the train station and figure it out. By the time I get to the station the only available tickets for the train weren’t until 7pm that night, landing me in NYC by 11pm. Nope.

I eventually talked to the ticket agent to see what my options were and by the saving grace of Michael Jackson again, a ticket for the 1:40 train magically became open for $150. Copped. I’d be arriving in NYC by 6pm, just in time for happy hour. YEET!!!

Thank you Black and/or White Michael Jackson!

My spirit was finally settling and at peace. Seeing, the beautiful, therapeutic snow capped land was soothing…until 2 hours in the fucking power on the train cut out and ceased the train!!!!

*deep breaths…Ooooohhhhhmmmmm*

Thank MJ everything powered back up 15 minutes later, on the road again.

3 hours into the ride the Train Operator announces an hour and a half delay due to train track traffic. WTF IS TRAIN TRACK TRAFFIC?!?!?! DO TRAINS PULL ONTO THE TRACKS LIKE ONCOMING FREEWAY TRAFFIC OR SOMETHING?!?!?

*DEEP BREATHS….OOOOHHHHMMMMMM!!!!!*

In closing, arrive at Penn Station, NYC at 7:30pm, 9 hours and $150 extra later, irritated as shit.

I catch the subway to the happy hour spot with my mug deliberately on mean, until I see their smiles.

 

Then I abruptly snap out of my feelings and break the pact with myself to mug, and smile and we all laugh at my dumb ass burnt mission.