Once upon a time a woman, who happened to be six months pregnant, flew all the way from her desert home in Arizona to a land far away called the East Coast. She had to attend a conference in small town in Maryland, so she decided to make the most of her trip and visit a few friends along the way. Before the conference, she spent the night with a dear friend in Baltimore. After the conference, she was going to fly to Virginia to visit one of her favorite families in the whole world {THIS one, in fact}. However, this is where the whole story gets complicated. It turns out there are almost no direct flights to Norfolk, Virginia, so this woman, great with child, had to fly from Baltimore to Newark to Norfolk on a busy Sunday evening. She made it from Baltimore to New Jersey with no problems. She flew into Newark at sunset, gazing at the Manhattan skyline just a few miles from the airport, and longingly wished for a trip to the Big Apple someday soon. She had only been once, many years ago, and her return visit was long overdue. When she got off the plane, she:
A) …made it through a three hour layover with ease. Her connecting flight was easy to find and arrived on time. Until her plane took off, she kept herself busy on the airport’s free WiFi and grabbed an affordable and healthy airport dinner. By midnight, she was in Virginia Beach, settling into her cozy bed for the night.
B) …learned that her dream of visiting NYC might happen sooner than expected. When she consulted the screen to check her connection, she learned her flight to Norfolk had been cancelled. She hurried to United Airlines customer service, where she was greeted by an agent who was patient and friendly and took sympathy on the pregnant woman standing in front of her. It turns out there would be an early morning flight to Norfolk… but out of LaGuardia in the city! United would pay for an impromptu visit to the Big Apple and put this weary woman up in a hotel for the night and treat her to dinner on the town. Not only that, but she would be in Virginia Beach by 9am and all would be well in the world.
C) …consulted the screens and realized that although her flight was thankfully on time, her gate was in a different terminal. This meant exiting the secure area, taking a train across the airport and going back through airport security for the second time that day. As she shifted uncomfortably in a crowded security line, she began to note how cold and rude people in the Northeast can be. No one smiled. No one used a friendly tone. Instead TSA workers barked directions that didn’t make sense. For example, one man made her put her purse inside her tote before even getting in the security line. Of course, she would have to remove her purse to get out her laptop and approved liquids from her tote when she finally reached the sensor machines, but this did not occur to the man that held her boarding pass hostage until she complied with his inane request. When she finally made it through security, she proceeded to her gate only to learn that in the past 45 minutes, as she had been trekking through the airport, her flight status had changed and she would now be delayed for an additional hour, on top of her three and a half hour layover. She would not be arriving to Virginia until 12:30am. She texted her hostess, to inform her of the time change, and then decided to make the most of a few spare hours. She was hoping to jump on her computer for a bit, but quickly learned that Newark does not have free WiFi for its patrons. With her cell phone battery quickly fading, she found a spot to plug it in, and began rearranging her luggage and cleaning out her purse to kill time. Finally, around 8pm, she decided she would grab dinner before her flight. During her dinner, she noticed two new emails in her inbox. She glanced at them, hoping they would say that her flight would not be arriving so late after all. Instead, she saw an evil word in the first subject line…. “cancelled.” The next email explained that she had been rebooked for a flight at 12:00pm THE NEXT DAY. She paid her dinner tab as quickly as possible and hurried over to United customer service. There were already five restless customers in front of her in line, including one very angry elderly woman who was irate on her cell phone and swearing she would NEVER fly United again. This tired, pregnant woman decided then and there that she was going to be nice about this situation, no matter what. The elderly woman had enough anger for everyone in the vicinity. The protagonist of this story quickly learned that she was stuck for the night. There were no flights to Norfolk until the next day and the earliest flight with openings would not leave until noon. United offered to put her up in a nearby hotel for the night and she took the voucher in weary surrender. She made her way back out of security and onto the train to catch a hotel shuttle. She was greeted by humid New Jersey air and a mess of people waiting on the sidewalk. Apparently, three different flights had been cancelled and everyone was migrating to hotels for the evening. Although shuttle after shuttle appeared, none were the right one, with the word “Ramada” painted on the side. A large group remained planted on the sidewalk, all waiting for this invisible shuttle to arrive. Finally, a grumpy man asked the driver of a different shuttle, “how much do I have to pay you to take me to the Ramada?” Suddenly a whole swarm of people were interested in using a different hotel shuttle to get to the Ramada Inn, and cold, hard cash was being offered frantically from the sidewalk. Tired pregnant lady, being a rule follower by nature, did not get involved in this scheme. She sat there patiently waiting for the correct shuttle, until this other shuttle driver looked over at her swollen belly and said “You. Get in the front seat!” and grabbed her suitcase without further consent. She climbed up into the front seat and listened to the shuttle driver blab the whole way to the Ramada about how this hotel was too far away and the governor must have taken cash under the table to approve it being built, because it was right next to the state jail. His final words before dropping off his band of tired travelers were “I always think twice before I drive out this way.” And with that, he pulled into the Ramada, took his generous tips from the passengers and drove away. And that is how a tired woman, great with child, came to spend the night in New Jersey.
Before she finally drifted off to sleep at the end of this long day, this weary pregnant traveler decided to write a blog post to capture her east coast adventures.The end.
