I am a planner

Now this is a post that is long overdue, and something I have wanted to write about since I returned from Italy. I am a planner, I know this, and although I can take changes in an itinerary or plan usually in stride, major changes will increase my blood pressure.

Flying standby is like playing roulette with an entire vacation or trip. Not knowing until 5 minutes before a plane is scheduled to leave if you are going to make it or not. Not knowing if you are even going to make it to the correct city or where you are going to route just to make it home. It was not unusual growing up for our family to fly from Florida (where my grandmother lives) to Denver, to Washington, to Chicago just to make it home to Milwaukee. You could be home in either 3 hours or 23 hours.

If these two ideals seem to be in direct conflict you would be right. Growing up that was all I knew so it was something to just endure and go with. Now I am flying an average of 100,000 miles annually with the airlines but all of it on paid tickets. These are tickets where I can plan to the minute in many ways my trip and the work I am going to get accomplished. For four years I have gotten spoiled and returning back is not so easy.

Flying to Italy and returning was just such an example. This was a family vacation (our 21^st annual vacation) and the trip was made from three locations (Baltimore, San Francisco, and Cairo) all on standby. Returning home after an extended vacation is always a test of patience, for two weeks the family has been trapped in a steel container, otherwise known as a car, and is itching for space and a sense of order that our normal day-to-day life brings. Trying to get home, I was calling friends to try to arrange a ride to pick me up from the airport without really knowing when we were going to get home, but having a rough idea. Flight was supposed to be wide open, 50 or so open seats as of that morning. No problem. Then the axe falls, weight restriction due to cargo, they can’t fill the plane completely with passengers. Immediately the mind tries to plan what other flights leave that day and instead of arriving late morning into CA, we are looking late evening or even the next day. Plans go out the window, lack of sleep rises up, blood pressure increases, heart rate quickens, and the taste of disappointment permeates the entire mouth. But then they might have seats, but wait other employees somehow snag them (although technically my mother outranks them). More disappointment. But then we make it, but only two of us, mom is left behind. Exuberance explodes in the body, but also a guilt of leaving the provider of those seats behind.

This is a taste of what it is like to fly standby. To any and all who have felt the result of my disappointment either verbal or just through body language I apologize. It is hard for me as a planner to face that rollercoaster of changes that happen so quickly. You don’t deserve it, and for that I am deeply sorry.