Story of the Day 7/ 18/ 2012 - part 2

We land in New York at LaGuardia airport.
We have a slight layover; 40 minutes, before the flight for Rochester boards.

Sarah notices that many of the people in the terminal are sweaty- the backs of their shirts are soaked.
She says, "The air conditioning isn't working."
I think she is wrong. It feels okay to me after the heat of the tunnel.

There is a plane to Houston that is supposed to board at the same gate, before our flight, but it is delayed getting in.
We wait.
As the time approaches for our flight, the Houston flight still hasn't boarded and they post a one hour delay for our flight.

By now, I have realized that Sarah is right, the air-conditioning is not working.
There is air movement, a fan or something, but it is more than a little warm.
Not compared to the 100 degrees of Indiana, more like 90.
This is because it is slightly milder in New York. I know this because the pilot announced that the temperature was only 99 degrees, just before we landed.
I figure we will both take nice showers when we get to Rochester.

We sit and we wait.

I buy a salad for Sarah, who is hungry.
No, she didn't like the provisions I packed in case we were stranded somewhere.

That is okay, it is early. I would start panicking if we had to start using our emergency provisions this early in the trip.
I go back and buy myself a banana.

We wait some more in the sweaty terminal.

And some more.

I text the guy who is meeting us in Rochetsre, so that he knows that we will be late.

They cancel the flight to Houston.

It starts raining.
Maybe it starts raining before they cancel it.
I can't remember.

The Houstron travelers line up at the desk to get different flights.
Some of them are offered to be bused over to JFK for a later flight.
Slowly, the line dissipates.

Then they cancel our flight.

They make an announcement
I cannot make out what they said. I go ask a woman.
A line forms at the desk.
I get in the line.
They tell people to use their smart phones and laptops and they can " jump" the line by rescheduling that way.
Some of the people stand in line and do that. Others use the 800 number to call.
The line is long, so that makes sense.
For them.

I have a dumb phone and no iPad or tablet or laptop, and I cannot hear well on my cell phone, especially in a terminal that is not at all quiet, so there is no point in my trying to call the 800 number.
I text the guy in Rochester.
The woman behind me is on her tablet checking things out and telling me what is full and what is available.

Two women traveling together at the front of the line are given seats on a later flight. They leave the line.
Three minutes later, that flight is also cancelled.
A few minutes after that, they have cancelled all flights to Rochester from LaGuaradia.
The woman behind me locates a flight from JFK. So does the guy in Rochester, he texts me about it.
Ten or fifteen minutes later, the line a is a little shorter, and that flight has been filled.
They start rescheduling people for a late night flight from JFK.

It is raining hard. There is lightning and thunder.
There are announcements about other flights being cancelled.
Soon, all flights from LaGuardia are cancelled.

All of them for the rest of the evening.

People start leaving.
They figure they can do some of this from home.


The people left are the desperate ones, the ones who either reallyy need to get to Rochester, like the two women in front of me who have business appointments, and the woman behind me with the iPad/tablet thing.
She has a conference. She needs to get there. She is trying all sorts of things.
She starts asking people if they want to rent car with her and split the drive.
The other desperate people are the ones who do not live in New York. They live in Maine and Florida..and Indiana.

They cannot just go home.
There is a rush to sites on the internet to book hotel rooms. A rush by the people who can easily afford a room in New York City, that is.
A family standing near me has a long conference about how many rooms they will need. There are 7 or 8 of them. They are also not sure how to get to the different hotels from here. New York is a big city with 5 boroughs.
How far away is Brooklyn? What about East Rockaway?

I start thinking about buses.
How would we get to Port Authority from here? How many hours would a bus to Rochester take. It is 4 hours to Binghamton. Another 4 to Rochester? Maybe quite a bit more since it might not be direct...and how many hours till it would leave?

The flights for tomorrow are filling up.
Two people traveling together are separated. One gets a ticket for a flight tomorrow morning, the other for a flight tomorrow evening.
Suddenly, all of the flights tomorrow are sold out.
So are the hotels.
This is because all flights from JFK have also been cancelled. All of them.

I get to the front of the line.
The woman offers me two tickets on a fight Friday morning.
The awards ceremony is tomorrow, at lunch time.
Tomorrow is Thursday.
Friday is a day late.
I text the guy in Rochetser.
Is it worth it for us to even fly there?
Then I realize it is, because we are also going to drive to Binghamton to annoy Ely.
I mean, to visit Ely.

I rememebr this article I read in a bathroom paper.
When the AARP magazine comes, my husband leaves it in the bathroom. He figures it is not worth any more time than that.
I, meanwhile, always end up grabbing it and reading it, so it ends up by the sofa in the living room.
It is like this game we play- you know who was the last person to spot it by which room it is in.

Also, I should explain that it is possible I did not read about this in an AARP magazine.
It could have been one of the 700 other things that come to our mailbox each month, but I am pretty are it was that one...on the other hand, since I am often wrong....

At least I do remember that there was an article about what to do if you are on a flight that gets cancelled.
So, I ask, "What about a hotel room and vouchers for meals?"
"This is weather related. We do not compensate if it is weather related."

She has been telling everyone who asks this. I have heard it said, as well, by the guy to her right who is handling his own line of stranded passengers.

I stand there.
She asks again if I want the Friday flight.
I tell her that I have to think about it. I explain that it is a long time to stay at the airport with my daughter and that I need to text the guy in Rochetser.
And I stand there and text him.

She asks me to move to the side so she can deal with the next person.
I turn around and sign what is going on to Sarah, who is still in the sweaty seat she has been sitting in for a couple of hours.
I move about 5 feet away.
I wait for the text from Rochester.
I also text my son, so he knows what is happening.

I go back to the woman, who has just finished with another passenger.
I ask about earlier flights from another airport. Earlier than Friday.
She says there is one tomorrow morning from JFK.
I ask if they will provide shuttle service. I know to ask this because the woman behind me , when she was looking everything up on the tablet thingy told me that the cab between the two airports was $80.
The airline lady tells me, "No". I wil need to pay for a cab.
I tell her, "That won't work."
I stand there.
She asks me, again, to move.
I move 5 feet away.

In another 5 minutes, I come back over.
She is not quite done with the next person.
I ask her if they can put us on a rolling standby starting with tomorrow morning.
She says, "No." They already have too many people on standby.
I explain to Sarah what is happening.
I do this by again signing to her across the waiting room.
This lady watches me signing to her, yet again.

I move away for another 5 minutes, then come back. I have not moved very far, any of these times.
Now I come back and ask her another flight related question.
I cannot understand what she is saying.
I've had to ask her, several times, to repeat herself. People are talking in line, there are overhead announcements, and I cannot hear well.

I pull out my hearing aid. It has a few different settings and by now, my ear hurts and I can't remember what setting it is on because my brain has overloaded from all of the sound. Sound- background sound and overhead announcements that I cannot figure out, and thunder.
All this noise is making it hard to hear with my hearing aid.
She looks at my squealing hearing aid.
This time the woman tells me to go sit down. She will get a red coat to help me.
I have no idea what she means. It is only later that I realize she has said "red coat". At the time, I cannot make the sounds I hear make any sense.


She tells me it will be about 20 minutes.
I go and sit down next to Sarah.
In the sweaty seat in the hot terminal that is now starting to cool off a little because of the rain.
It might be down to 82, by now.
And we wait.
And wait.
About 40 minutes later, I go back up to the desk.

There is woman there in a red coat.
All of the sudden, I realize what the first lady said. "Eh oah" was "red coat".

I ask her what I need to do.
She tells me she is working on it
She has us seats on a flight .
Tomorrow morning.
From LaGuradia.
The one that was full over an hour ago.
She is working on getting us a hotel room.
Several minutes later, she hands me vouchers.
$6 for dinner.
Since this is New York, and the airport, that means a large soda and a piece of fruit, maybe. But at this moment that sounds good
Even though I do not drink soda
And a vocuher for the hotel, and one for car service.

She gives me directions to get to where we can get the car service.

I thank her.
Then I walk over and thank the first lady, who just wants to see me out of here.

You see, the article in the AARP magazine said to...not leave. Just stay there.