The Plane Ride from You Know Where

I finally made it back from Steubenville last night. I mentioned before that I found that my entire itenerary was cancelled when I arrived at the airport in Memphis. The flight they put me on went pretty well. I had to connect through Cleveland, but it wasn’t much of a problem. The connecting flight was overbooked, but I managed to get on. The plane was a small plane that was very noisy, but kind of fun to fly on.

The trip back was sheer, utter hell. I was set to connect through Atlanta (which I would never do intentionally). The first leg of the trip was supposed to last about an hour and a quarter, arriving at about 9:15 PM. Instead, it arrived in Atlanta at about 12:45 AM. A weather problem kept us in a holding pattern until the plane was almost out of fuel, at which point we and about four other planes had to land in Greenville, South Carolina. We had to just sit there for a long time (I don’t remember how long.) before we finally got back into Atlanta.

Miraculously, my connection plane was still there. It was supposed to leave at 10 PM, but they hung around until about 1:30 AM. It was the most uncomfortable plane ride I’ve ever been on in my life. It was extremely cramped. Fortunately, the flight from Atlanta to Memphis was fairly short.

My problem didn’t end there. To add insult to injury, my luggage apparently didn’t make the trip with me. The lady at the baggage claim office wasn’t able to do much for me because their computer didn’t work. So, I didn’t get a “file number,” as they call them. I called their toll-free number the next morning, and I think I got one of those overseas outsourcing companies. I explained my whole story, including the fact that I didn’t have a file number, and then the rep asked me for the file number that I just told him I didn’t have. He wasn’t very helpful.

To make a long story short, their system still says they don’t have any information on my baggage. However, I have my bags. I called the local office just to see what I could get, and my bags mysteriously appeared at the airport . I’m tempted to continue to monitor the system for my bags to see how long it takes them to figure out that I already picked up my bags.