Two weeks ago, my husband and I left to go visit my daughter who is a foreign exchange student in Belgium.  It was to be a ten-day vacation for us.

Notice I said “left to go” and not “went”.  That is because we left home on Thursday but didn’t get to Belgium on Friday.  Or Saturday. 

We thought we had crossed all our T’s and dotted all our I’s.  My mom was coming to stay with the kids, the week’s schedule was painfully explained on an hour-by-hour basis so that even a grandmother could understand it, and money was left for emergencies (next week’s column).  We left hours before the flight to make sure we left nothing to chance.  We waited in line for forty-five minutes to check in.

“Your flight has been cancelled,” was all I heard.  I thought I was dreaming.  It turned out there was a terrible hailstorm in Chicago, and the airport had been closed indefinitely.  Our flight had a layover in Chicago.

I’ve never had a flight cancelled.  Delayed, yes, rerouted, yes, but cancelled?  I couldn’t believe it.  My throat was sort of tightening up; I was thinking about my daughter (who I hadn’t seen in eight months) waiting for us at the airport and us not showing up; I was wondering if I would be able to contact her before she made the one-hour train trip to the airport to greet us.

It was the middle of the night there, but we were able to get a message to her that we’d be spending the night in a Houston hotel but should fly out next day.  No, I didn’t cry.  I was holding together pretty well.

So, the next afternoon, we went through the motions again.  We waited in line again, and this time we actually made it onto the plane.  I began to relax.  We were really going this time.

We taxied out onto the runway.  It began to rain.  And blow.  And thunder.  And lightning.

The pilot came on the intercom and said, “Ladies and gentlemen … we have a little thunderstorm that’s popped up, so we’re going to have to sit here awhile until it passes.  It shouldn’t be long.”  That was okay with me … I didn’t relish taking off in a thunderstorm.

We sat for one hour.  It was still raining.  And blowing.  And thundering.  And lightning.  He came back on and said, “Ladies and gentlemen … it looks like we might be waiting a bit longer that we first thought.”  No duh.

Then he came on again and announced, “Ladies and gentlemen … our aircraft is experiencing an electrical problem, so we are going to taxi back to the gate to have it checked out.”  I could feel the throat thing tightening up again.

A few minutes later he announced, “Well, we can’t get to the gate right now, so we’re going to have to sit here for a while.”  This was turning into a nightmare.

We finally got back to the gate and we were asked to gather our possessions and get off the plane.  We stood in line again to see if we could get another flight.  Okay, so now I was fighting back the tears.

About the time we got to the front of the line, they announced that our original flight was reboarding.  We finally took off … but because we landed in Chicago three hours late, we missed our connecting flight to Brussels.

We were instructed to go gather our luggage, but it wasn’t there.  We stood in another line.  We were told to go to the main ticket counter.  We stood in another line.  Nobody from the airline ever showed up, so we went back to the gate where we had landed and stood in line again. Then I stood in line to call my daughter.  Again.

My daughter, meanwhile, was eating dinner with her host family.  Her host-mom commented, “Well, let’s just pretend your parents are coming to see you.”

We were shuffled all around the Chicago airport until I was so weary, I was about to lose it.  At one point there were about thirty of us in a line we thought was to rebook flights when a woman announced over the intercom that we were in the wrong line.  She said to go to Gate H2 … maybe they could help us there.

The natives revolted.  I mean people were shouting obscenities and were refusing to leave until the president of the airline himself came and took care of them.

My husband and I quietly snuck away and went to Gate H2.  An angel was there in the shape of a middle-aged man.  I walked up to him with tears in my eyes and said, “Can you help us?  We’ve been in airports for two days and can’t find our luggage and can’t get to Brussels and we don’t know what to do.”

This kind man sent us to the Hilton (without luggage), compliments of the airline, with free meals and confirmed seats on the flight the next day.

No, we didn’t take the offer of two $1,000 vouchers to get off the overbooked flight.  (Yes, we thought about it.)  Yes, we finally got there.  Yes, it was wonderful.  No, we weren’t really ready to come home.

But we were tired of lines. We counted how many times we had stood in line … it was more than twenty.  At first, we were hoping to have our return flight cancelled, or at the very least, get offered $1,000 to get off.  But the thought of standing in line again ruined it. 

And yes, it was good to be home.