Houston, we have a problem!

Once again, I found myself in a situation on Monday, that was strange and a tad unbelievable. I flew home to Denver for fall break to hang out with Josh and to see the family and left early Monday morning on a flight to Houston and then into Waco so that I could be at a class at 1pm (in which I had a presentation).

The weather in Houston was not the greatest, and after flying in circles around the Houston airport, the pilot made the announcement that we needed to head to Corpus Cristy in order to refuel because of the delay in getting into Houston.

The plane landed in Corpus Cristy at 11:00 am. The pilot made the announcement that we would be refueling and then waiting to hear back from Houston to know when we might be able to fly in because of adverse weather. The flight attendants informed us that if we wanted to get off the plane, we could, but we would not be allowed to get back on the flight, and we would be responsible to get to Houston, and we would not get our bags if we checked them.

I was assuming that we would be waiting an hour at the most, so didn't get off the plane. We headed out to the run way to wait to fly into Houston, and the pilot continued to come on to inform us that we continued to be delayed. After waiting about an hour, he informed us that we would have a two and a half hour wait.

So there we were, sitting out in the middle of the runway, the engines shut off leaving warm recycled air circulating in the airplane, no food, a cup of water, and a full plane. This would have been okay, but we ended up leaving at 5pm...thus sitting on an airplane for 9 and a half hours...AHAHAHHH....It was quite interesting to observe how the people around me responded to this situation when they had lost all control, were in a small warm place with no food or water, among strangers. (The fact that I was reading my counseling book on how people cope in stressful situation made it even more interesting for me!)

The couple in front of me were on their way to Mexico for their honeymoon, the gentlemen across the aisle from me started getting angry, throwing things down the aisle, the lady behind me kept tapping the back of my seat saying "I think I"m going crazy" and the gentleman in the row behind me got really angry. He was cussing at the flight attendants, started calling news stations and emergency numbers, and getting everyone worked up. The two babies on the flight were crying, and changing poopy diapers in an airplane doesn't do much for the recycled air!

In the end, the pilot let us know we had been cleared to leave. Upon this announcement, he turned off the engine and told us that we could not leave because a passenger on the flight had called 911 stating that there was an emergency and we needed to be deplaned. You can imagine how people responded to that! The gentleman had to call 911 back and let them know it was not a real emergency and to please release the hold on our plane! For a moment, I thought there might be a riot.

Anyway, we landed in Houston, where we had to wait another hour to get to our gate, and when I stepped off the plane, they let me know that my connecting flight had been cancelled and that I could fly standby the next afternoon, or I could rent a car and drive the 3 hours to Waco.

I rented a car (the last one available) and drove home to arrive in Waco around 11pm. Quite possibly the longest day of my life.

So, you might ask, how did I respond to this whole situation? Lucky for me, the two men sitting next to me responded with humor and a light spirit. The thing that was the most difficult for me was the fact that I had lost my cell phone in Denver, so I had no way to communicate with folks about what was happening! I knew a few phone numbers, but was shocked at how disconnected I was without my cell phone!

Needless to say, I have never been so happy to make it to Waco...and maybe that was the point all along!