It was like the trip that opened up the can of crazy. Ever\nhave one of those? Not bad. Not dangerous. Not even majorly delayed or overly disrupted.\nFlights eventually got where they were supposed to go, and there was never any\nloss of life or limb (or baggage.) Yet, nothing about it seemed particularly\nnormal, and I spent the entire time wondering what would go wrong \u2013 or crazy! \u2013\nnext. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was a trip to Washington D.C. for a college media\nconference. The college newspaper I advise at Flagler College was a finalist\nfor a national award for online publications and I was taking a student editor\nto collect the plaque. Yippee!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But it all started with a canceled flight that wasn\u2019t\ncanceled. My phone blurted at me in the middle of the night to tell me the airline\nhad scratched the early morning flight because of \u201csevere weather\u201d and re-booked\nus to late evening. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are few things worse than a frantic, beleaguered and\nfutile middle-of-the-night airline cancellation quandary. When you desperately\nwant answers, solutions and some remedy to your carefully choreographed trip,\nbut can\u2019t muster much in a bleary-eyed, early-morning stupor. Exhausted and\nfinally resigned to doom, I went back to sleep, planning to wake up late and\nmope around all day. Only, when I did wake up, I came to find that the flight was\nmiraculously back on and I had better hustle if I was gonna\u2019 make it. Thanks,\nphantom cancellation! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There were things I\u2019ve never done before. Like mixing up\npersonal credit cards with a fellow adviser one night. He texted me the next\nevening to say, \u201cHey Brian, I think we grabbed each other\u2019s cards last night.\nDon\u2019t worry \u2026 I\u2019ll pay you back for the cruise I booked with yours.\u201d That was a\nrelief. I had ordered a new couch on his. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Or how I ended up on the wrong side of a World Series\nvictory parade. Apparently I was the only human in the District of Columbia left\nunaware that the Nationals had been crowned world champs and that a massive victory\nparade would roll down Constitution Avenue with F-16s flying over and grown men\nwearing Baby Shark onesies. I violated the cardinal rule of parades when I went\nout for what I thought would be a relaxing stroll: Never cross to the other\nside. Because if you do, that will inevitably be when the cops shut down\npedestrian traffic, and you\u2019ll have to take a detour down the length of the\nroute, through most of D.C. and then around North Carolina to get back to the conference.\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ever been in a cab on the way to the airport early in the\nmorning when you get pulled over for speeding? What do you even do in a\nsituation like that? Feel anxious? Wonder if the cabbie is wanted for something\nserious, like selling illegal Baby Shark costumes? Ask the State Trooper for a\nlift? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What about finally making it to the airport and then having\nyour carry-on bag flagged by TSA for a search? It turned out the \u201csuspect\u201d\nobject was the very award plaque we went to D.C. to get. I don\u2019t know what the\nTSA agent expected to find, but by the look on his face, it certainly wasn\u2019t a\nplaque. \u201cYou won this?\u201d he asked. \u201cWell, technically the students did,\u201d I\nreplied, thinking \u201cand if there is ANYTHING wrong with it, it\u2019s definitely\ntheirs \u2026 NOT mine!\u201d Then he proceeded to swab it for explosive residue, which I\nthink is about the greatest compliment a journalism award could ever receive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And just when I thought it was all over and had boarded the plane,\nthe pilot came on the intercom to explain they were having computer issues. But\nnot to worry! He was going to shut off the engines to see if that would reset\nit. Which is just about the same as saying, \u201cFolks, anyone on board have some\nduct tape? We need to reattach the horizontal stabilizer before we get on our\nway.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
At that point, it was all I could do to get home and finally close the lid on this can-of-crazy. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was like the trip that opened up the can of crazy. Ever have one of those? Not bad. Not dangerous. Not even majorly delayed or overly disrupted. Flights eventually got where they were supposed to go, and there was never any loss of life or limb (or baggage.) Yet, nothing about it seemed particularly normal, and I spent the entire time wondering what would go wrong \u2013 or crazy! \u2013 next. <\/p>\n
It was a trip to Washington D.C. for a college media conference. The college newspaper I advise at Flagler College was a finalist for a national award for online publications and I was taking a student editor to collect the plaque. Yippee!<\/p>\n
But it all started with a canceled flight that wasn\u2019t canceled. My phone blurted at me in the middle of the night to tell me the airline had scratched the early morning flight because of \u201csevere weather\u201d and re-booked us to late evening. <\/p>\n
There are few things worse than a frantic, beleaguered and futile middle-of-the-night airline cancellation quandary. When you desperately want answers, solutions and some remedy to your carefully choreographed trip, but can\u2019t muster much in a bleary-eyed, early-morning stupor. Exhausted and finally resigned to doom, I went back to sleep, planning to wake up late and mope around all day. Only, when I did wake up, I came to find that the flight was miraculously back on and I had better hustle if I was gonna\u2019 make it. Thanks, phantom cancellation! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[575,565],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2019-nutshells","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1999"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2000,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1999\/revisions\/2000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}