First World Problems

What fresh hell is this. Fourteen hours to fly home instead of the scheduled 5. I rushed from my conference presentation to the New Orleans airport at noon. My TSA precheck didn't get on my ticket. I was sure I would miss my flight and I may have cried a little. Only to have lightening delay the plane for an hour. As we landed in Dallas,  I watched my connecting flight take off without me. We came into a gate RIGHT BESIDE the one I was to leave in. That never happens! The rebooked flight is not until 9:15 pm. Sigh. Oh, but what I wouldn't do now for a 9:15 flight. I have never received so many change alerts through my phone app. It's now pushed back to 11:58 pm and I'm not going to the gate until they finally settle on one. I think we've been at Terminal A,B,C and now D tonight. 

I took this flight home a day early because of stress with the tornado and death of a friend. Just go down and come right back, my boss said. While I was at the conference, we got hail and all the farm building roofs, house roof and siding are all riveted with holes. Trees and spring plants chewed up by marble hail. We haven't even gotten the insurance settlement from the tornado yet. I am bone weary. 

Apparently you can buy a "day pass" at the airline's club, I tried for an hour to get login help for my advantage card to see if I had enough miles... I was hung up on by Customer Service 3 times and never did get the promised "survey" when the call was done to rate their service. Good thing. When I was finally tired enough to plunk down the money, the club told me they would be closing in an hour- still an hour before my flight begins boarding. So, I'm here, plugged into an outlet, writing out my frustrations instead. 

All the while listening to the audio book, American Dirt. The extreme fear and devastating conditions of migrants fleeing cartels trying to kill them for speaking out against violence certainly makes my problem a first world one. Why does the USA need to make it so hard to get to safety within our borders. We can no longer sing "Give me your poor huddled masses yearning to be free." Better go chip those words off the Statue of Liberty. I hope righteous indignation is enough to keep me awake driving home from the airport at 2:00 AM.....