Away in an Airport, No Plane for a Babe or How Russell Brand and a United ticket agent saved my life!

After a wonderful and relaxing holiday with my amazing family, me and my husband took to the airport on Tuesday December 28th to get from SFO to JFK, on an 11:15am Jet Blue flight. However, because of the east coast snow blizzard disaster of 2010 or more well known to me being a true Canadian, just another winter snow fall, this flight was delayed. After about three hours of waiting at the Jet Blue terminal, the lovely blue chip eating ticket agent announced that the flight was canceled because there were no planes going into JFK after 8pm because of the weather. Ugghhh interesting because my brother's United flight is on time going into JFK tonight.

Alright, husband, operation: book a new flight- GO!!!!

1). Call JetBlue rebook~ sorry the first flight out is Saturday January 1st at 7:40pm

2).Call United to see if there are any other flights out tomorrow~sorry no direct flights to New York, you would have to go to Chicago, then to Washington and then take a bus into Manhattan

3).Call Virgin Air- sorry we only have two first class tickets to Boston. A red eye leaving tonight for $$$1700 EACH

4).Go back to Jet Blue- there has to be a way- sorry in the last hour that you have been trying to rebook there are no flights out until the 3rd or 4th, and I still have no real explanation of why the original 11:15 flight was canceled, but I can offer you a flight to Boston leaving on December 29th at 1pm and getting in at 12am, on me of course.

Which means we would have to a). get on a bus traveling into a snow storm in the middle of the night from Boston to Manhattan or b). spend more money on an over priced hotel room for the night

5).OK- go back to United, there has to be a way:

ENTER: Alice (that's not her real name)

Alice looked into my tear filled eyes and said she would try to help. As I watched intensely as her fingers typed rapidly into the computer (think Edward Scissor Hands when he is creating) Alice finally looked up and said she could get me on a flight from SFO to JFK TONIGHT!

WHAT- THERE IS A FLIGHT OUT TONIGHT. WHAT THE PILOT?

But there is only one ticket. Oh crap, I'm now a package deal, I need two tickets one for me and one for the cute man standing by the bags over there.

Alice says the only thing she can do is get us on a red eye to Washington (another surprise, cause when I called earlier the underpaid, overworked, non-caring voice on the other end said there were no other flights leaving on the 28th). Ok, I will book one of us going on the JFK flight and both of us on the Washington flight. I then told Alice I would check back in every twenty minutes to see if anything has changed.

As I was finishing my last bite of airport garbage, Alice comes over and says that she is going to see if there is a bigger plane that we can move the flight to in order to get a seat for both of us. Alice leaves and we wait.

About five minutes later another United ticket agent comes over and says we are on a flight leaving in an hour to New York- Kennedy.

Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah. After giving Alice the biggest hug I have ever dolled out, we ran to security, imagine Home Alone when they are running to catch the flight after forgetting Kevin.

Finally at 11:25pm the wheels of the plane fold in and we take off. I sprawl out because the seat beside me is EMPTY, and start to read my book: Russell Brand's My Booky Wook 2: This Time It's Personal. As I began to read about Russell's adventures sleeping with Kate Moss or meeting Jack Black for the first time, the turbulence started. Oh please no, I hate flying at the best of times. Ok- don't worry Russell will get me through. I focused on Russell, and after a few anecdotes about MTV and hosting Big Brother, the turbulence stopped. I was calm enough to put my head on my husbands shoulder and fall asleep. When I awoke we were fifteen minutes away from landing

Thank you Alice. And thank you Russell and you really didn't need to dedicate your book to me, but just so you know it's "ie" not "y".