Better to be Lucky

Like about 93% of the citizens of the United States, I had a run-in with a little storm this past week. The monster that hit the Midwest and East Coast managed to impact, but not completely ruin, a quick trip I had planned back to Boston earlier this week.

For the record, KLC predicted that I could/would get stuck since New England had already experienced so many storms this winter already. I was casual and said that surely there couldn't be many more, and I was positive that I would have no problems on this quick trip back. Um, yeah.

The plan was to fly in late Sunday night and leave Tuesday night. The first part worked fine. I got to see my parents and then went into the office on Monday for the meetings that brought me back East. Then people in the office started mentioning the changing weather reports for Tuesday, and by the early afternoon it was clear that I stood a very strong chance to proving KLC right.

This is where being a government employee comes in handy. We are able to change flights without penalty, so I got myself on the first flight out (6:25am) to Dallas and then back to Seattle. Surely, I figured, Dallas was southern enough to miss this storm. (If you see a recurring pattern of me being wrong here, you are picking up on something.)

Getting to the airport at 5:30 am, I saw my flight was listed as "on time." By the time I had gone through security, however, and was waiting for my bagel and coffee, things had changed. In that 15 minutes, my flight and nearly every other one to Dallas and a lot of other cities were now cancelled. Imagining myself in the masses trying to wait in line at American airlines, I decided to seek out any human being in the concourse where I was suppose to fly from.

The only counter with anyone at it? The 6am flight to Seattle ... through Chicago. I knew this flight existed but didn't pick it the day. I had thought Chicago wouldn't be a good place for a connection because a blizzard was supposedly headed that way. Knowing I was on a perfect streak for wrong until this point, I decided to go with my anti-instinct and get on the plane. (There is a Seinfeld episode about this with George, but I digress.) After all, Chicago is halfway to Seattle, right?

Well, it turns out that not listening to myself works wonderfully. The flight to Chicago landed without a problem (and it was virtually empty so I had a whole row to myself). The connection to Seattle took off less than an hour later. It was early enough in the day that it was barely snowing. In short, I got back to Seattle by 11:30 am Pacific -- hours or probably days if I had not changed my flight plans. I might have been more lucky than smart on this little adventure, but I'll take it. And, I think I will wait until spring or, better yet, summer before I risk another trip back to New England.