Home again, home again, jiggity jig...

(Not our actual plane)











Home again, so soon, you ask?

Oh yes. I'm home.

Our trip (that never was) started off yesterday on a late note. Husband had a long day at work and came home about 6. We got on the road about 7, and headed to Orlando. No biggie, the airport is less than 2 hours away and we arrived with no problems.

We had a nice, new, hotel room. Of course with that came the new smell, and my overly sensitive nose. I managed to avoid the migraine that I was sure would occur, and so off to sleep we went.

Until I realized that we were in fact sleeping on THE loudest bed. ever.

I'm a total bed whore, and not in that way, just that I am very much in love with my own bed, and I have a hard time making it anywhere else. This bed wasn't nearly as rock hard as the one we had on vacation, but it was so damn LOUD! Seriously, every movement could be heard, and felt. Ugh.

When the alarm went off at 5am, I felt like I had just barely went to sleep..and I probably had :/ We got ready, and made our way to the airport for our 6:50am departure.

We squealed tires and screeched into the terminal with about 10 minutes to spare before take off, only to find out that the flight was delayed 30min. This actually played to our advantage because we were nearly going to miss the flight. Upon check in, the guy tells us that he cannot seat us together, we each have a seat in a separate row.

"So I'm supposed to let my 2 year old sit ALONE on a plane? Ha."

Thankfully, when we got to the gate we realized that he had sat us together after all- not sure what the mix up was. Oh and might I add, we weren't the very last people to check in- 2 guys beside us checked in and had to rearrange their luggage because they were going to have to pay a $50 overweight luggage fee. Why, you ask? Because he had a suit case FULL of drills, screw drivers, and tools of other various persuasions. When he found out that his suitcase was too heavy, he took them OUT of the suitcase and used them in his carry-on. Yeah, that made us feel safe. A guy with a bag full of drills and screw drivers.

Anyhow, we get to our gate and they make an announcement that the plane will not take off at 7:20a, but rather at 9:00a due to fog in WV. That's ok with us, we can tough it out for another hour. At 9:00a, the screen says our takeoff is "To Be Announced", and they come on and say that the weather is ok, but that they don't have paperwork on the plane that allows them to fly it..it's lost, they can't find it.

WTF?! This turned out to be a non-issue before too long, because they brought another plane over, changed the crew onto it, and loaded the luggage onto the plane. Only apparently we would soon find that this plane was not inspected. Or maybe it was, but whatever.

We finally get on board about 10am, 2 hour and 10 minutes after we should have already landed. As soon as we take off, son starts saying "I want down! I want down!", and he didn't mean out of his seat, he meant off of the plane. I start freaking out, thinking that he was going to freak out for the next hour and a half. I'm sure that he could tell that I was tense, but if you knew me "in real life", you would know that I am terribly afraid of flying and so there was no avoiding my freak out. I even tried to be tough and not take my nerve pill before we took off, but apparently I should have taken both of them ;)

Shortly after take off, son falls asleep and so I try to do that as well (didn't happen). We get about 30 minutes into our flight, and the plane takes a hard turn, only when I look out the window, we are actually turning almost a complete circle. I ask husband "Did we just turn around??".

For the next 10 minutes, people look somewhat confused, and the pilot calls the flight attendant 3 times during this period. With the last call, she looks a little concerned, and then an announcement comes over the speaker.

"Uh..ladies and gentlemen, in case you haven't noticed, we have turned around and are headed back to Orlando. We know that you've had a very long day, but we are getting some readings up here that something in the cockpit needs to be checked out. Uh...no reason for concern...just needs to be checked out..."

The next 25 minutes that followed were quite nerve racking. The plane did lots of weaving from side to side, a good bit of bumping, and due to being so close to where we took off from, we descended quite fast to be able to land. I was ready to have a heart attack, and throw up all at once. We land, HARD, and come to a stop. At this point I am telling husband "They have to let me off of here, you don't understand. I'm NOT staying on here and taking off again." Fortunately they made everyone get off, and at that point I am OVER the whole ordeal. It's been 5 1/2 hours and we're back where we started, son is exhausted and so are we, and 2 out of 3 of us are traumatized. At least son was being SO well behaved, I was quite impressed!

At that point, we make the decision to just go back home. They couldn't guarantee us when the plane would take off again or anything. It ended up only being 3 hours later, which wasn't so bad, but with a tired 2 year old and the bad flight, we just weren't willing to wait anymore. Husband called the corporate for the airline, and they actually gave us a full refund- or so they said. 24 hours later, it's not pending in my bank account, so I'm not sure what's going on there. Refunds through airlines are generally unheard of, but husband negotiates for a living most days, so it wasn't an issue ;) As long as the money goes back in there. If not, I just feel sorry for those people when he calls back. We are not the kind of people that are rude for no reason, or call to tell people off for the hell of it, but when husband called and the lady at corporate said "It's not my problem", well.. they are kind of on his bad side now.

We go to leave the airport, and I realize that son's carseat is underneath the plane as checked luggage. So a little bit more waiting, and coloring in son's notebook in the massage chairs, we were out of there. Husband was on such a roll that he even got us out of paying parking at the airport. Sometimes he is actually useful ;)

Of course the flip side to all of this is that while I was dreading the guilt we were going to get while visiting, we are now getting 10x more for not coming. I totally understand them being upset when we went from coming, to being late, to not coming at all, but the lack of understanding just annoys me to no end. No. End. I have to do what I can- as usual- to listen, but let some of it just roll in one ear and out the other- I can't deal with the constant guilt trips and phone calls of what we should have done, or what they would have done, etc etc. It's wondeful to be loved and cared for so much by family, but sometimes it can still annoy the crap out of me.

So now, husband has to get up at 5am tomorrow, drive 5 hours to meet mother in law halfway, get daughter, and then turn around and come right back home.

What a week......