I am home.
But not without some effort.
These days, as you all know of course, airlines are trying so hard to cut their costs down to the bone and squeeze every possible extra penny out of you. So they let you check in on line (to save your talking to a person), which is fantastic; you just have to carefully maneuver your way through the system so you don’t accidentally spend an extra $300 (on a $200 ticket) agreeing to upgrades, extra miles, extra legroom, oh and CHECKED LUGGAGE, which yes, you have to pay for now, even the first bag. But, whatever.
So this morning when Jay checked me in for my flight home, there was a little message: “Your flight might be delayed.” Well, is it, or is it not delayed? What are you supposed to do with that information? Show up later and miss it? Of course not.
I went at the appointed time, we said our goodbyes, I went to my gate (where it still said “on time”), and waited…until about ten minutes past when we were supposed to board, at which time they made a rather brusque announcement to the effect that, if we hadn’t already been told this at check-in, this was a reminder that the flight to SFO was delayed at least an hour (“maybe less, maybe more”) due to air traffic issues at SFO. (Which couldn’t have been weather.)
Eventually they changed the sign to “delayed”, but posted no new ETD. Never a good sign.
About an hour and a half late, we boarded…it’s a small plane, and they were having weight-balance issues, so they started moving us around. I was in seat 13D and got moved up to seat 4D (extra legroom! for free!), which felt like a win to me until I encountered my seatmate: a person of the teen variety, glued to a small handheld device so thoroughly that it made my own wrists hurt just to think about the carpal tunnel. At least there was the take-off and landing respite from that…
Ah, landing. Ah, SFO! Clear, gorgeous, OMG HOT day here! I got to my car, put the top down, and enjoyed my lovely drive back up to the city………where I encountered Bay to Breakers!!!
Gah! Naked drunk people frolicking in the streets! Everywhere! My entire route home as soon as I got off the freeway! Apparently, my new neighborhood is quite the landing point for the post-race party. And the parking area of choice for them all.
So there I am, wheeling my luggage many blocks from my car to my apartment, hours later than I had expected, thinking, This is the sum total of what I am going to do today…
Even so, upon reflection, I think I might start that commissioned short story tonight. After I closely interrogate the leftover Chinese food to see if it might be edible. It’s only been five days; it’s been in the fridge; it should be fine, right? Right?