The Horror, The Horror (Of Air Travel)

My sister Susan and my flight back to Denver from Rome did NOT go smoothly.  It was a long flight to begin with (eleven hours), and as we approached Dallas, where we needed to change planes, a bad storm resulted in the Dallas Airport being closed.  We circled it for 2 hours before the captain decided to land in "sunny Houston" instead.  There we sat on the tarmac for 2 hours before a customs agent cleared the aircraft for deplaning. After going through customs, we had to stand in a huge line to get re-booked, and then go through security all over again.  When we got to the front of the line, we were told we would fly to Dallas that night and return to Denver the following morning. I asked if we would have to stay in the airport all night, and was told yes, and so made reservations at a Best Western near the Dallas airport. Once we arrived in Dallas, however, we were told we had a voucher for a hotel room, but by then it was too late to change plans (they had my credit card), and so we took a cab to the Best Western.

It was too late to get dinner - plus, there did not seem to be any restaurants in the area that were open that late. We each headed to our rooms, where I was awoken at 3:00 A.M. by a very loud, weird sound.  I could not figure out what it was. I turned on the light, and finally realized it was my cell phone going off.  I answered, and listened to a message that said the flight we were booked on had also been canceled. I did not get all of the message, and was forced to fire up my laptop and check my e-mail, where I discovered about 10 messages from American Airlines (they evidently expect all passengers to keep in constant contact with their e-mail account), the latest of which said our new flight would be leaving at 8:45 A.M. instead of 10:45. Great.  I would have to get Susan up even earlier. However, I suddenly realized that we were booked to leave on Friday, not Thursday, and spent the rest of the evening switching the flight to Thursday night at 10:30 P.M. (we had to pick up Susan's two dogs Friday morning in Fort Collins). We spent the day in Dallas, caught the 10:30 P.M. flight, which was naturally delayed enough to arrive just after 1:30 A.M. in Denver, when RTD (the light rail train) stops running, and took a cab to the RTD parking lot to pick up the car for the drive to Fort Collins. And just the other day I received an e-mail from American Airlines wanting me to tell them how they did. Don't tempt me, guys, don't tempt me.