Listen to your Echoes
It was about midnight last night that I first got a funny feeling about the trip. I was packed and ready to head to North Carolina in the morning. I usually listen to my intuition. Over the years when I talked myself out of those ‘funny feelings’ I usually looked back and said, “why didn’t I pay attention?!?”
So I checked with my client this morning, alerted the dogsitter that I might not be going, and waited to see how much the airline would charge to change the ticket to next week. The change fee was $30 less than the cost of the ticket. Somehow, in the middle of all the conversations, I ignored my intuition and headed to the airport.
When I arrived, the flight was delayed by 45 minutes. Whoops, that just changed to 2 hours. Ok, now we have connection flight problems and a night in the Cincinnati airport in my future. Not good. Arrival would be 24 hours from when I left my home.
Breathe. Smile sweetly. Explain that you need to change the ticket to get there tonight.
No. Nothing. Wait, another agent steps in. We’ll route you through Newark. Oops, that closed up. Airlines are running overbooked now, fearing more losses from fuel issues.
Keep breathing. Smile. Take this in stride. (Beth, you didn’t think you should go anyway! Jump ship?)
Ahh, we got it. A flight opened up going to Dallas. You’ll be fine. Grab a Paradise Bakery sandwich, get to the gate. Through the security gauntlet. Call client. “On the way after all!”
What? “Houston has closed its airport. Flights jammed up everywhere. Hurricane Ike is bearing down. Floods in Wichita. Galveston closed. The Gulf is swirling.”
I tell the gate agent I don’t want to spend the night in the Dallas Airport either. (I do love those cowboys, but …) Keep smiling. Things always work out. He suggests and I accept a refund! Got a full, no-penalties refund on a flight I didn’t think I should take anyway. Life is good.
I go to the FastTrack parking lot to get my car. She recognizes me from this morning. I have spent three hours at SkyHarbor Airport trying to figure this out. I shrug and tell her it’s just all part of the travel game. She laughs and doesn’t charge me a dime! Life is good.
Back home now. Will tele-meet with my client tomorrow. My dogs are happy. I get to go boot scootin’ tonight. And I have a great sandwich from my favorite Airport restaurant.
Life is, indeed, good.
I just turned on the TV and saw what I would have been flying through: “Conditions going downhill fast!” Hurricane winds and rain. Tornadoes. Delays. Upset and frustrated people. Cramped airplane seats. Poor Wifi connections. Power outages. Weather channel advises, “Stay where you are. Prepare for power outages.” My puppies nudge me for dinner.
Listen to those echoes. If you feel like something is amiss, it’s amiss. If you aren’t sure about a trip, maybe you’re right. How often have you gone against your instincts? How often have you wished you’d listened? This time I was lucky. A confluence of events kept me from making a really bad choice. Had the plane been on time this morning, I would be in the middle of a huge mess.
Eventually everything works itself out. I’m happy this one worked out in a way that kept me home with my Chihuahuas. So are they.
