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Plan B
By Milt Abel | February 12, 2011
| February 12, 2011Plan B
Four-thirty in the morning Friday, February 4, my side-kick and karmic foil, my wife, drops me off at PDX to begin the air travel of my trip to San Juan, Puerto Rico where I’ll join the Serenade of the Seas. A hug and a kiss goodbye and the second I pass through the doors of the airport I hear a public announcement that my flight has been canceled and all passengers already checked-in are to return to the ticket counter. Shouldn’t bad news wait until at least 6 a.m.? Give a guy a chance to get on his feet before your start slapping him around. Bad news is hardly ever fair, but at that hour its being nasty.
For the past few days winter had fallen on most of the U.S. with such vigor it was shutting down airports and domino-ing into flight delays for more temperate locales. But I was flying south and considered the conditions to be not my problem. Let the eastern half of the country and the midwest scoop their snow, I had packed my sandals and shorts and was going to skirt around all of it. Or so I thought.
At PDX the line for service, and at the counter itself, had formed its own weather front: hot and smoldering from those waiting, and chilly at the desk. When I reached the counter I didn’t asked what caused the cancellation, that would have taken up more time, I just allowed the service personnel to reroute me as cooly as they could, there was enough heat from behind to stay warm. American Airlines threw me on a Delta itinerary right quick and I ended up leaving Portland later, yet arriving sooner, into San Juan. Plan B.
At the Atlanta airport, where I’d catch my connection to San Juan, I saw a television news report about the ‘historic’ snowfall in Dallas; were my original itinerary had routed my connection. Watching the story I had the same sense you have when passing the auto accident that had delayed your drive; an explanation of the problem and the guilty elation it wasn’t me.
The Atlanta airport wasn’t immune. Businessmen were on phones with itinerary printouts crumpling in their hands, and kids and grandparents were jogging, giggling, and searching for their boarding gates. I saw one pilot, a captain with four stripes on his sleeve, change direction twice in the terminal in a matter of seconds, pivoting his rolling flight plan bag and luggage like a dance partner. It’s disconcerting to see a pilot lost, at the least unsure; and I hoped he wasn’t driving my plane.
It wasn’t all bad news. My flight from Atlanta to San Juan was overbooked (surprise!) and volunteers were being sought to take the next flight, two and a half hours later. My employers don’t take kindly to any messing with their itineraries, but since I was released from that with the original flight canceled, I volunteered. Not only did I receive a voucher for $300 dollars credit with Delta, I went from a middle seat way back in coach to an aisle in fist class. Plan B+
After a nice night’s sleep at the Conrad San Juan Condado Plaza I boarded the Serenade of the Seas and performed for the Welcome Aboard Show at 10:30. A late show by most standards -I almost fell asleep between dinner and the show, but they turned out to have a lot on energy and we all had a lot of fun.
Here’s a couple jokes pulled from that show: The first deals with an impression of San Juan -and silly me, even after my troubles aboard my previous ship with passengers complain about racist remakes, I told a joke I wrote that afternoon, though I think it benign, not as benign as the one that got me in trouble, but it was several minutes into the set, and I could tell it would go over.
The next audio clip is a longer section: this is near the end of my 26 minute set and deals a bit with airplane travel, and is a relatively new joke, just the past couple months.
I’m gun-shy since my troubles on my last ship. I worry about getting complaints over using the term ‘dwarf’ instead of ‘little people’. I’ll probably have them at my house ringing my doorbell to complain… if they can reach the button.
TweetTopics: comedy | 1 Comment »
February 23rd, 2011 at 6:25 pm
Great stuff, Milt. It’s lonely out here, just me and the Quebecois! Niw they are complaining about Le Cirque night in the Pinnacle Grill. Apaarently it’s racist.