Deplaned

The time I spent in Jacksonville to cap off my recent trip over to Florida was over all too soon. After mere hours, I was off to the airport for a flight to Las Vegas and a second one bringing me full-circle to Burbank. My anxieties were seemingly at an end when I successfully passed through security once more with my status as a reputable flier and my laptop both intact. I anticipated no trouble, but then who can say they do in such times? Trouble came nonetheless.

When the plane showed up at the gate, I was relieved, as I often become concerned when the plane fails to do so well before the planned departure. I had just a few moments to be glad, for word came swiftly from disembarking passengers that the plane had been struck by lightning. The airline itself never explicitly confirmed this to all of us, saying only that the plane was being taken out of service for the remainder of the day due to some unspecified troubles. I think they were more forthcoming on a one-to-one basis. In any case, we were to wait for another plane.

The wait amounted to some six hours. This was far from ideal, but I retained my cool by considering how preferable the wait was to going ahead in a stricken plane. We had been granted a free meal pass, which I would have been glad to have when I had bought an airport-priced Quizno's sub before any hint of trouble. I was not terribly hungry hours later, even after the arduous ordeal of walking 'The Wolfman' there in the terminal on my laptop, but I never waste a meal voucher, so off I went to spend it at the only realistic place apart from the Quizno's, the only-if-your-flight-is-delayed Sbarro.

At long last came the plane, and with it an uneventful flight to Las Vegas, where I was doomed to spend the night for lack of a connecting flight to make that evening. Happily, we had been furnished with not just a meal voucher but a comped hotel room. Off we went to the luxurious McCarran Airport Hampton Inn. It was a confused and harrowing experience getting from the gate to the free shuttle, but I managed it after a fashion. I figured this to be the end of the excitement prior to my morning flight which was to complete the journey, but it was not to be.