ON A WING AND A PRAYER

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Next time any of you decide to embark on an international vacation, please follow this one simple little piece of advice: Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to return. Renounce your citizenship as the plane lifts off, and embrace your new country, whatever it may be.

I learned this most important lesson recently when my parents made the awful mistake of trying to return home from Australia.

My parents went to Australia as contestants on Survivor: Australian Outback. (Editor’s note: It’s the most popular show on television. Did he think we’d believe that? They weren’t on Survivor. They were counseling Nicole Kidman.)

The last leg of their return journey, despite being the shortest, turned out to be the most annoying. At least for me.

My sister and I went to the airport to retrieve the weary travelers. I firmly believe that siblings should stay close through bonding experiences such as cursing airlines together.

Their flight was scheduled to get in around 6:30, which is airport time for never. When we first got to the airport, we checked the arrivals/departure board, and saw the flight was on time. Perhaps it was the youthful naivet�, but we both bought that line wholesale.

We strolled down to the gate, figuring we had only a few minutes until our parents arrived. We waited a few minutes, then a few minutes more. And then a few minutes more. I decided to ask someone if the flight had arrived. "No," I was told. "Why don’t you ask someone who isn’t cleaning out ashtrays," my sister wisely suggested.

So I went inside to the ticket agent to inquire as to the whereabouts of my parents. I enjoyed the look of confusion on her face when I said, "I can’t find my parents…" and she looked up to see a 28-year-old lost child.

Eventually I got it out of her that the flight was delayed in Atlanta courtesy of a thunderstorm and was scheduled to arrive around 8. I am pretty sure that Atlanta is a meteorological phenomenon, as it has 24-hour thunderstorms around the airport. I think pilots try and take off in between lightning strikes.

My sister and I did the sensible thing when presented with such a situation – we turned to Alcohol – "Alcohol: Bridging the Gap from Problem to Solution for 5,000 Years." OK, so we went and had a beer in the airport bar.

At about 7:30, we heard rumblings from the other bar patrons that the Atlanta flight had arrived. This was early, but I thought maybe those thunderstorms had been accompanied by high winds, which provided a little boost to the jets heading this way.

We made our way down to the gate and watched as passenger after passenger strode from the plane. My sister and I agreed that, to the best of our recollection, none of them were our parents. My sister, always the detective, determined that the flight had not come from Atlanta, but from Myrtle Beach. She discerned this from a passenger who had apparently been experiencing the joy of the airline mini-bottle and rambled something to the effect of, "Thish ishn’t Charlotte… we were supposhed to go to Charlotte from Myrtle….BARTENDER!!!!"

At that point, I went back to my friendly ticket agent friend to see if the plane was still on time. The ticket agent was on the phone, so I stood by patiently, politely eavesdropping on her conversation. That’s when I heard her say, "All Atlanta flights after 7 cancelled. Gotcha. Thanks."

She then went back to merrily pecking away at her keyboard. "Excuse me," I said, "did you say all of the flights from Atlanta are cancelled?"

"Yes, sir!" she said WAY too cheerily. Then back to the pecking. No announcement. No update. No brief news snippet to the full waiting room that the plane they were waiting to take them OUT of the airport would never actually come INTO the airport. Nothing.

So now we had no parents, no apparent plane coming in, and no way to get in touch with our parents. Add to that fact we were the only visitors in the airport with knowledge of the cancellation, and we’ve both got a lot on our minds.

Eventually, through the miracle of cellular technology, we got word that our folks were renting a car and driving from Atlanta. Needless to say, at that point we left the airport. I think it should be noted that this was a good hour after I learned of the cancellation. And how many announcements had been made regarding this? Zero. That’s right – the exact same number as planes that would be arriving on time.

Eventually, my parents did make it home, albeit many hours (and one rental car) after they had originally planned. I’m not sure if I will ever travel internationally. If I do, I’d better pick some place nice, because I’m not even going to bother trying to get back.