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*Posting early because so much happened that it requires it's own post.*
TRIGGER WARNING: BAD FLIGHT EXPERIENCE / FEAR OF FLYING
I woke up before my alarm to use the bathroom, and although my fever had receded for the moment I had somehow managed to pull a back muscle during the night. It was very painful to bend forward...you know, the movement I'll need to complete ALL DAY today while lifting my 50lb suitcase, 35lb backpack, and 20lb trombone case into Ubers and onto scales. Great! On top of having to travel with a virus. What a joy.
There was nothing that I could do about it, so called an Uber and off I went to the airport.
Checking in and security and all that went smoothly, but at the gate although our plane was there it was delayed because it had been struck by lighting on the way in! Crews were going over the whole plane with cherry pickers and misc equipment. I should have taken a picture. The gate agent said that it was actually considered "routine" for planes to be struck by lightning, but when it happens there are safety processes that need to be completed, which I was absolutely glad to wait for.
The delay ended up being about 3 hours, so I rebooked my connection and called Jim (our company management) to be sure he knew what was going on.
Right here I want to note: this was the first time that I mentioned the possibility of getting a rental car...before the travel day got EVEN WORSE. I suggested offhand that it might be a good option if my SECOND flight was delayed or cancelled due to the INCOMING STORM that had been forecast 72 HOURS AGO and that we could all see was probably going to interfere with flights for the day.
"There's still plenty of time!" said Jim.
I didn't feel confident but didn't say anything, because so far everything was going "moderately ok."
Eventually we started boarding. This was an unusually large model of plane, one of those with a big row of 3 in the middle and rows of two on either side. It occurred to me that I should ask about the Delta pilot trading cards I'd heard about on TikTok (HERE is a link to the video I saw) I asked a random flight attendant...and she knew exactly what I was talking about! She said it was really unusual for this model of plane to be flying domestically (they're usually for international flights) and before I knew it she had popped up to the cockpit and grabbed me a trading card! My first one! They're real!!
These have been around for at least a decade believe it or not, but you have to specifically ask for them. The trading cards were an initiative started by Delta employees who wanted to share their passion for flying with passengers. The designs of the cards are updated every year. I think this is just THE COOLEST. I don't even care about aviation that much but this certainly has me interested to try and collect as many cards as I can!
The flight was unfortunately turbulent due to the storms all over the US, so there were no services offered and we had to stay in our seats. Luckily it was just a short flight to Atlanta. We landed at the farthest possible point from my next gate, so I had to choose: pee, eat, or refill water bottle? I chose "pee,", then rode the ATL airport tram all the way to gate A and got there just as my group was boarding. At the gangway I again remembered to ask the flight attendant about the trading cards, and because we were right next to the cockpit I got to watch as she asked the pilots and one whipped out a trading card right away and handed it to her! I yelled him a thank you which I'm not sure he heard, but other flight attendants exclaimed over the card...several of them had never heard about them either!
Here is the card for my second flight, a 737-900ER.
Feeling good vibes and like the day was off to a decent start, I settled into my seat and got ready for a turbulent but short flight to New Orleans. Little did I know the day was about to get a lot longer, and a lot worse.
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Travel Day From Heck: Part 1
The flight was uncomfortable due to turbulence, plus I hadn't had time to get food or refill my water. I rationed my water and ate a lot of my travel snacks, feeling bad that I didn't have enough to share with my seat-mates. We got all the way to New Orleans...then suddenly everyone's flight monitors updated showing a route to TALLAHASSEE. We got rerouted because NOLA airport had closed due to a nasty incoming storm system (too warm to snow there but tornadoes forming, and hurricane-force winds.)
We were allowed to BRIEFLY deplane in Tallahassee, where I found eight other My Fair Lady folks who were on the same flight! We only had a few minutes so everyone was scrambling to get food and water and pee (I managed all three).
PLEASE NOTE: At this point I texted Jim (company management) and directly asked for a rental car.
"Aren't they going to send you out again?" was his response. At this point I should have listened to my instincts. I should have taken my own safety and wellbeing into my own hands. But other people from my company were waiting for instruction without complaint, and I didn't want to be the squeaky wheel and the outlier who caused an inconvenience.
A few minutes later we reboarded for a second attempt at flying into NOLA. I am a nervous flyer, I get motion sick very easily, so I was worried but figured it was such a short flight, and perhaps the storm system was mostly past and that's why they thought it was worth trying again.
It was very turbulent again...even more turbulent. Frighteningly so.
And then we got to NOLA, and the plane was PITCHING, dipping, lurching. It was nighttime and dark out, no horizon line plus it was absolutely storming out there, and even if there had been a horizon line it would have been dipping crazily everywhere as the plane was pushed around like a toy. We found out later that we had been trying to land in 70mph headwinds (what the actual FUCK.)
I had my eyes squeezed tightly shut and was forcing myself to "go somewhere else" so that I wouldn't go into an absolute meltdown panic attack, or faint. The people around me were not doing much better; the man to my left was doubled over in his seat and the woman to my right clutched the seat in front of her as though her life depended on it.
As the landing gear came out I experienced the absolute worst turbulence I have ever felt on a flight. My entire sense of equilibrium was off, I couldn't tell up from down. G-forces were pulling me up toward the ceiling, then sideways or back down into my seat. It was at this point that I heard people starting to retch and gag. Although it was hard to release my white-knuckle grip that I'd had on my own wrists, I did it and put my hands over my ears to reduce sensory input overall...and to avoid hearing the sounds of people vomiting. Fortunately (I guess), because I was sick with this cold/flu I couldn't really smell any of what was happening, and/or people had been able to grab their barf bags in time.
At this point the plane dipped suddenly and violently, then there was an extreme, crushing amount of G-force that smashed us all into our seats, and the plane seemed to be pulling up almost completely vertical like a space rocket. Some people wailed or screamed. I think that was our first failed attempt at landing, and the pilot pulling back up into the sky where we bounced around again. Then the same thing happened AGAIN, a plunging-toward-the-ground sensation, a second round of intense G-force followed by the sharp vertical pull-up. To me it seemed like we were about to slam directly into the ground, but the pilot got onto the com and lackadaisically suggested that we open up our air vents if we were feeling motion sick, to help get air moving. He sounded not only calm but mildly amused. Good lord.
After that second attempt we went back into moderate turbulence, and the flight path again showed a route to Tallahassee. A flight attendant came through to collect trash/vomit bags, but after that they all had to sit down again because it was still way too turbulent.
You guys. I have NO IDEA how I didn't either pass out from terror, or vomit. I wonder if being sick actually helped somewhat, because my brain was too fuzzy to go into the complete panic that I'd usually feel in such a situation. Or maybe my inner ear was already messed up, making me less nauseous than I would have normally been. Or maybe because I'd scarfed down a big sandwich right before we left, my stomach didn't fill with sloshing acid. Whatever had protected me for this horrific experience, I was grateful beyond words. First of all to be ALIVE, and second of all not to have vomited or fainted. I was shaking like a leaf and sweating, but I think nearly everyone was at that point.
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Travel Day From Heck: Part 2
We landed again in Tallahassee. I was so, so, so grateful to be on the ground. At this point it was late at night (10pm I think?) and Tallahassee is a small airport, so we had to wait while gate agents and crew were gathered so we could get off the plane. Then they told us that if we got off the plane we would not be allowed back on, PLUS our luggage would not be returned to us that night. It was clear that there would be no more attempts tonight, anyway, which thank F*CK.
Our My Fair Lady group gathered on the gangway, and decided to leave the plane with our carry-ons hoping that our company management could figure something out. At this point I'm ashamed to say that I was one of the least-calm people in our group. I have intense flight anxiety on a NORMAL travel day, and now the entire day had been turbulence and terror, and a one-hour flight had turned into a 15-hour ordeal with no end in sight, plus my trombone was in the checked luggage! How was I supposed to do a show without a trombone?! So when Jim (company management) told us to "give it the old college try" on the rescheduled flight the next day...I LOST IT. I could not believe that the expectation was for all of us to be perfectly ok and peachy-keen with flying again after that. And I voiced that, borderline hysterical, to my peers, who listened and to their credit stayed a lot more calm and gave me more deference than I deserved. I apologized for flipping out of course, and they all said they understood that it wasn't directed at them, but I was still letting my anxiety leak out at people who had had just as terrible a day as I'd had, and that wasn't right. I still feel bad about it.
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Travel Day From Heck Part 3 (no, it isn't over, there's EVEN MORE.)
We waited at the airport for at least an hour while the poor gate agent, who was all alone, tried to distribute electronic hotel and food vouchers one-by-one for hundreds of passengers. I never got any vouchers myself, but most of our group did. We were told that the flight was rescheduled for tomorrow at 10:30am. I checked the weather and this is what I saw:
In other words, the same storm system that we had encountered in NOLA was moving east and would be in Tallahassee right when our flight was scheduled to take off. And everyone else was ok with this. I looked around at my peers and could not believe they were nodding and agreeing with this itinerary.
Our company management texted to say they'd gotten us booked at a hotel nearby, so off we went to the luggage carousel downstairs (a crew had been found to take our luggage off the plane after all.) I was thrilled at this because if I had all of my belongings, I was no longer beholden in any way to these crazy company-booked itineraries involving flying into goddamned tornadoes.
But after all of the suitcases had been unloaded, and everyone had their luggage and had called their Ubers to the hotel...my trombone was nowhere to be seen.
I waited and waited, and finally the belt stopped moving. Everyone had left without me. The Delta luggage assistance desk was closed. I circled the airport and asked everyone I could find--security, an American Airlines agent, a TSA agent--where I could look, what I could do. I asked company management for help and they said, "Have you tried asking around?"
Finally I realized that there was nothing I could do, no further recourse I could take that night. It was after midnight and I was so exhausted and stressed to the point of near-hysterics, and could barely think. It was clear that no one was going to help me, except myself. So I fucking did just that. The car rental counter was minutes from closing. I walked up and rented myself one of their last available cars, a minivan, for $150. I threw my suitcase in the back and drove it to the hotel, where I had to wait TWENTY FUCKING MINUTES to check in because there was someone making a scene at the front desk. During that time I texted Abi (company management) to inform her that I'd be DRIVING to New Orleans, so don't make the group wait for me in the morning, etc. Shortly after that Jim called to ask why I was driving, and finally, after all that had happened, I broke down. Through tears, I explained to him that the same storm system that was in New Orleans today was moving east and was supposed to be in Tallahassee tomorrow, right when our rescheduled flight was supposed to take off. Did he REALLY expect me to get back on a plane in the middle of the same storm? REALLY???? He said that he understood and left it at that. At this point I don't really care how needy, emotional, weak, or demanding I sounded. Everyone else seemed perfectly happy to get back on the same plane tomorrow in the middle of a storm. Good for them! Big back-pats and medals all around for being "troopers" and "giving it the old college try" I'm sure. But I had had MORE than enough of putting my safety and wellbeing into the hands of others, and reaping the "rewards" of that today. I was DONE.
I finally got to check in after 1am. Got to my room and was so stressed and tense that it took me another hour to fall asleep.
Right as my eyes were closing, my phone pinged. It was Jim, in New Orleans...holding my trombone.
This is the biggest mystery of the day.
How did my trombone get to New Orleans that night??
My luggage tracker says that it was loaded onto the same plane that I was on, the one that never landed in New Orleans. The last timestamp that I had for it was at 4pm, which was in Tallahassee when we were reboarding for the second attempt at reaching NOLA.
We were only in Tallahassee that first time for about 30 minutes, and we reboarded right at 4pm. So somewhere in there, JUST MY TROMBONE, no other luggage, was pulled off and put on another flight? Or an angel came and spirited it away as we were plunging toward the tarmac in New Orleans? I couldn't believe it, and was awed and grateful.
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Travel Day From Heck Part 4
I woke up around 5:45am, repacked everything, and checked out.
Outside the wind was already high, around 25-35 mph. I checked the weather and saw that there were already tornadoes on the ground along my route. I hesitated, but you know what? I'd rather die on the ground, with my life in my own hands, with some small modicum of dignity, instead of in a tin can in the sky covered in vomit and plummeting toward the ground with my head between my knees. I had let others control my safety all day yesterday, and we can see how that went. Ultimately, I wanted to be treated like a human being and not an inanimate object being moved around on a game board at the convenience of a corporation. And if that's what I wanted, I had to give it to myself, because at this point it was clear that no one else was going to attribute any value to me, except myself.
So off I went while my coworkers slept.
It was scary.
Driving through tornado warnings is not a joke, and it is really no safer than huddling in a hotel or on a plane. But on the ground, you can pull over. You can seek shelter. You have phone service and can call for help. You can pee and eat and drink water when you need to. And most of all, you can avoid an inevitable flight delay. Plus, I am actually a VERY good driver and have a lot of experience driving through severe weather, believe it or not. So I was scared...but I believed in myself, and I trusted myself to pull over if I needed to.
(CLICK HERE for footage of what I drove through.)
I almost pulled over twice, both times when passing through actual tornado warnings. A "Tornado Watch" means tornadoes are possible; a Tornado Warning means there is actually a tornado on the ground somewhere nearby. And oh there definitely was. I couldn't see it, but I had never seen such intense lightning, and the wind was incredible. I was on an interstate so there was enough lighting to see whether debris was on the road. And I stuck close to a line of truckers, keeping a safe distance from them but always keeping their tail lights in my view. When they put their 4-ways on, so did I. And we plodded forward against hurricane-force winds, and we did not see any tornadoes. But I almost pulled over twice because the rain was so hard at those times that my wipers couldn't keep up. That intensity didn't last, so I was able to keep moving forward, somehow.
There were lots of breaks in the weather, as this system was made up of bands, so I stopped several times for coffee or snacks or to pee or stretch my legs.
MEANWHILE, my coworkers who had all stayed behind got up to find out their flight had been delayed, and as the day progressed, the tornado warnings (yep tornadoes still ON THE GROUND) reached Tallahassee, so the entire airport went into lockdown and everyone was herded into the airport stairwells.
As I was nearing the end of my drive around noon, the tornado warnings were lifted and the airport was reopened...but the stairwells had been outside security, so the entire airport had to go back through security screening.
Look at all the fun I missed out on by driving, you guys!
I could have been herded into a cold cement stairwell for an hour, like cattle in a pen!
And made to do TSA security screenings TWICE!
Plus sitting in an airport for three hours while someone else decided how my day would go!
And then having to FLY, again, after all of that!
They did manage to take off around 2pm, and landed in NOLA around 3pm.
By that time I had gone to the grocery store, checked in to the hotel, returned the rental car, and was dead asleep.
So, I don't care that it "worked out in the end."
It is clear to me that I have little value to society, and that overall I'm just another dumb animal, a little cog in a wheel or a plastic game piece to be moved around on a board by people who expect me to "deal with" whatever they decide is "the best option", ultimately, for THEM. But it is MY body, and MY soul, and it has value to ME even if no one else gives two fucks.
Today my employer chose to value the almighty dollar. And I chose to value myself.
And look at that, it paid off.
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After all of that we still had a show to do. I'll probably save that for my usual Thursday post.
Suffice to say that the nap I got before the sound check and show was not nearly enough, but it was better than nothing.
I have been touring for nearly a decade.
I have lived on a moving train for five years, and on a cruise ship for four months, and I have flown hundreds of times.
This was, by far, the worst travel day that I've ever had in my forty years of living.
As I told my sister later on: it was like a real-life nightmare.
Like a frightening dream about the worst flight turbulence; and then not being able to find an important item that you need; and asking people for help but they all just smile and shrug or walk away; and then being chased by a tornado. It was all so over-the-top and bizarre that it felt unreal, a nightmare come to life or like I'd died and been sent to hell.
I hope to never experience a day like that again.
TRIGGER WARNING: BAD FLIGHT EXPERIENCE / FEAR OF FLYING
I woke up before my alarm to use the bathroom, and although my fever had receded for the moment I had somehow managed to pull a back muscle during the night. It was very painful to bend forward...you know, the movement I'll need to complete ALL DAY today while lifting my 50lb suitcase, 35lb backpack, and 20lb trombone case into Ubers and onto scales. Great! On top of having to travel with a virus. What a joy.
There was nothing that I could do about it, so called an Uber and off I went to the airport.
Checking in and security and all that went smoothly, but at the gate although our plane was there it was delayed because it had been struck by lighting on the way in! Crews were going over the whole plane with cherry pickers and misc equipment. I should have taken a picture. The gate agent said that it was actually considered "routine" for planes to be struck by lightning, but when it happens there are safety processes that need to be completed, which I was absolutely glad to wait for.
The delay ended up being about 3 hours, so I rebooked my connection and called Jim (our company management) to be sure he knew what was going on.
Right here I want to note: this was the first time that I mentioned the possibility of getting a rental car...before the travel day got EVEN WORSE. I suggested offhand that it might be a good option if my SECOND flight was delayed or cancelled due to the INCOMING STORM that had been forecast 72 HOURS AGO and that we could all see was probably going to interfere with flights for the day.
"There's still plenty of time!" said Jim.
I didn't feel confident but didn't say anything, because so far everything was going "moderately ok."
Eventually we started boarding. This was an unusually large model of plane, one of those with a big row of 3 in the middle and rows of two on either side. It occurred to me that I should ask about the Delta pilot trading cards I'd heard about on TikTok (HERE is a link to the video I saw) I asked a random flight attendant...and she knew exactly what I was talking about! She said it was really unusual for this model of plane to be flying domestically (they're usually for international flights) and before I knew it she had popped up to the cockpit and grabbed me a trading card! My first one! They're real!!
These have been around for at least a decade believe it or not, but you have to specifically ask for them. The trading cards were an initiative started by Delta employees who wanted to share their passion for flying with passengers. The designs of the cards are updated every year. I think this is just THE COOLEST. I don't even care about aviation that much but this certainly has me interested to try and collect as many cards as I can!
The flight was unfortunately turbulent due to the storms all over the US, so there were no services offered and we had to stay in our seats. Luckily it was just a short flight to Atlanta. We landed at the farthest possible point from my next gate, so I had to choose: pee, eat, or refill water bottle? I chose "pee,", then rode the ATL airport tram all the way to gate A and got there just as my group was boarding. At the gangway I again remembered to ask the flight attendant about the trading cards, and because we were right next to the cockpit I got to watch as she asked the pilots and one whipped out a trading card right away and handed it to her! I yelled him a thank you which I'm not sure he heard, but other flight attendants exclaimed over the card...several of them had never heard about them either!
Here is the card for my second flight, a 737-900ER.
Feeling good vibes and like the day was off to a decent start, I settled into my seat and got ready for a turbulent but short flight to New Orleans. Little did I know the day was about to get a lot longer, and a lot worse.
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Travel Day From Heck: Part 1
The flight was uncomfortable due to turbulence, plus I hadn't had time to get food or refill my water. I rationed my water and ate a lot of my travel snacks, feeling bad that I didn't have enough to share with my seat-mates. We got all the way to New Orleans...then suddenly everyone's flight monitors updated showing a route to TALLAHASSEE. We got rerouted because NOLA airport had closed due to a nasty incoming storm system (too warm to snow there but tornadoes forming, and hurricane-force winds.)
We were allowed to BRIEFLY deplane in Tallahassee, where I found eight other My Fair Lady folks who were on the same flight! We only had a few minutes so everyone was scrambling to get food and water and pee (I managed all three).
PLEASE NOTE: At this point I texted Jim (company management) and directly asked for a rental car.
"Aren't they going to send you out again?" was his response. At this point I should have listened to my instincts. I should have taken my own safety and wellbeing into my own hands. But other people from my company were waiting for instruction without complaint, and I didn't want to be the squeaky wheel and the outlier who caused an inconvenience.
A few minutes later we reboarded for a second attempt at flying into NOLA. I am a nervous flyer, I get motion sick very easily, so I was worried but figured it was such a short flight, and perhaps the storm system was mostly past and that's why they thought it was worth trying again.
It was very turbulent again...even more turbulent. Frighteningly so.
And then we got to NOLA, and the plane was PITCHING, dipping, lurching. It was nighttime and dark out, no horizon line plus it was absolutely storming out there, and even if there had been a horizon line it would have been dipping crazily everywhere as the plane was pushed around like a toy. We found out later that we had been trying to land in 70mph headwinds (what the actual FUCK.)
I had my eyes squeezed tightly shut and was forcing myself to "go somewhere else" so that I wouldn't go into an absolute meltdown panic attack, or faint. The people around me were not doing much better; the man to my left was doubled over in his seat and the woman to my right clutched the seat in front of her as though her life depended on it.
As the landing gear came out I experienced the absolute worst turbulence I have ever felt on a flight. My entire sense of equilibrium was off, I couldn't tell up from down. G-forces were pulling me up toward the ceiling, then sideways or back down into my seat. It was at this point that I heard people starting to retch and gag. Although it was hard to release my white-knuckle grip that I'd had on my own wrists, I did it and put my hands over my ears to reduce sensory input overall...and to avoid hearing the sounds of people vomiting. Fortunately (I guess), because I was sick with this cold/flu I couldn't really smell any of what was happening, and/or people had been able to grab their barf bags in time.
At this point the plane dipped suddenly and violently, then there was an extreme, crushing amount of G-force that smashed us all into our seats, and the plane seemed to be pulling up almost completely vertical like a space rocket. Some people wailed or screamed. I think that was our first failed attempt at landing, and the pilot pulling back up into the sky where we bounced around again. Then the same thing happened AGAIN, a plunging-toward-the-ground sensation, a second round of intense G-force followed by the sharp vertical pull-up. To me it seemed like we were about to slam directly into the ground, but the pilot got onto the com and lackadaisically suggested that we open up our air vents if we were feeling motion sick, to help get air moving. He sounded not only calm but mildly amused. Good lord.
After that second attempt we went back into moderate turbulence, and the flight path again showed a route to Tallahassee. A flight attendant came through to collect trash/vomit bags, but after that they all had to sit down again because it was still way too turbulent.
You guys. I have NO IDEA how I didn't either pass out from terror, or vomit. I wonder if being sick actually helped somewhat, because my brain was too fuzzy to go into the complete panic that I'd usually feel in such a situation. Or maybe my inner ear was already messed up, making me less nauseous than I would have normally been. Or maybe because I'd scarfed down a big sandwich right before we left, my stomach didn't fill with sloshing acid. Whatever had protected me for this horrific experience, I was grateful beyond words. First of all to be ALIVE, and second of all not to have vomited or fainted. I was shaking like a leaf and sweating, but I think nearly everyone was at that point.
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Travel Day From Heck: Part 2
We landed again in Tallahassee. I was so, so, so grateful to be on the ground. At this point it was late at night (10pm I think?) and Tallahassee is a small airport, so we had to wait while gate agents and crew were gathered so we could get off the plane. Then they told us that if we got off the plane we would not be allowed back on, PLUS our luggage would not be returned to us that night. It was clear that there would be no more attempts tonight, anyway, which thank F*CK.
Our My Fair Lady group gathered on the gangway, and decided to leave the plane with our carry-ons hoping that our company management could figure something out. At this point I'm ashamed to say that I was one of the least-calm people in our group. I have intense flight anxiety on a NORMAL travel day, and now the entire day had been turbulence and terror, and a one-hour flight had turned into a 15-hour ordeal with no end in sight, plus my trombone was in the checked luggage! How was I supposed to do a show without a trombone?! So when Jim (company management) told us to "give it the old college try" on the rescheduled flight the next day...I LOST IT. I could not believe that the expectation was for all of us to be perfectly ok and peachy-keen with flying again after that. And I voiced that, borderline hysterical, to my peers, who listened and to their credit stayed a lot more calm and gave me more deference than I deserved. I apologized for flipping out of course, and they all said they understood that it wasn't directed at them, but I was still letting my anxiety leak out at people who had had just as terrible a day as I'd had, and that wasn't right. I still feel bad about it.
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Travel Day From Heck Part 3 (no, it isn't over, there's EVEN MORE.)
We waited at the airport for at least an hour while the poor gate agent, who was all alone, tried to distribute electronic hotel and food vouchers one-by-one for hundreds of passengers. I never got any vouchers myself, but most of our group did. We were told that the flight was rescheduled for tomorrow at 10:30am. I checked the weather and this is what I saw:
In other words, the same storm system that we had encountered in NOLA was moving east and would be in Tallahassee right when our flight was scheduled to take off. And everyone else was ok with this. I looked around at my peers and could not believe they were nodding and agreeing with this itinerary.
Our company management texted to say they'd gotten us booked at a hotel nearby, so off we went to the luggage carousel downstairs (a crew had been found to take our luggage off the plane after all.) I was thrilled at this because if I had all of my belongings, I was no longer beholden in any way to these crazy company-booked itineraries involving flying into goddamned tornadoes.
But after all of the suitcases had been unloaded, and everyone had their luggage and had called their Ubers to the hotel...my trombone was nowhere to be seen.
I waited and waited, and finally the belt stopped moving. Everyone had left without me. The Delta luggage assistance desk was closed. I circled the airport and asked everyone I could find--security, an American Airlines agent, a TSA agent--where I could look, what I could do. I asked company management for help and they said, "Have you tried asking around?"
Finally I realized that there was nothing I could do, no further recourse I could take that night. It was after midnight and I was so exhausted and stressed to the point of near-hysterics, and could barely think. It was clear that no one was going to help me, except myself. So I fucking did just that. The car rental counter was minutes from closing. I walked up and rented myself one of their last available cars, a minivan, for $150. I threw my suitcase in the back and drove it to the hotel, where I had to wait TWENTY FUCKING MINUTES to check in because there was someone making a scene at the front desk. During that time I texted Abi (company management) to inform her that I'd be DRIVING to New Orleans, so don't make the group wait for me in the morning, etc. Shortly after that Jim called to ask why I was driving, and finally, after all that had happened, I broke down. Through tears, I explained to him that the same storm system that was in New Orleans today was moving east and was supposed to be in Tallahassee tomorrow, right when our rescheduled flight was supposed to take off. Did he REALLY expect me to get back on a plane in the middle of the same storm? REALLY???? He said that he understood and left it at that. At this point I don't really care how needy, emotional, weak, or demanding I sounded. Everyone else seemed perfectly happy to get back on the same plane tomorrow in the middle of a storm. Good for them! Big back-pats and medals all around for being "troopers" and "giving it the old college try" I'm sure. But I had had MORE than enough of putting my safety and wellbeing into the hands of others, and reaping the "rewards" of that today. I was DONE.
I finally got to check in after 1am. Got to my room and was so stressed and tense that it took me another hour to fall asleep.
Right as my eyes were closing, my phone pinged. It was Jim, in New Orleans...holding my trombone.
This is the biggest mystery of the day.
How did my trombone get to New Orleans that night??
My luggage tracker says that it was loaded onto the same plane that I was on, the one that never landed in New Orleans. The last timestamp that I had for it was at 4pm, which was in Tallahassee when we were reboarding for the second attempt at reaching NOLA.
We were only in Tallahassee that first time for about 30 minutes, and we reboarded right at 4pm. So somewhere in there, JUST MY TROMBONE, no other luggage, was pulled off and put on another flight? Or an angel came and spirited it away as we were plunging toward the tarmac in New Orleans? I couldn't believe it, and was awed and grateful.
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Travel Day From Heck Part 4
I woke up around 5:45am, repacked everything, and checked out.
Outside the wind was already high, around 25-35 mph. I checked the weather and saw that there were already tornadoes on the ground along my route. I hesitated, but you know what? I'd rather die on the ground, with my life in my own hands, with some small modicum of dignity, instead of in a tin can in the sky covered in vomit and plummeting toward the ground with my head between my knees. I had let others control my safety all day yesterday, and we can see how that went. Ultimately, I wanted to be treated like a human being and not an inanimate object being moved around on a game board at the convenience of a corporation. And if that's what I wanted, I had to give it to myself, because at this point it was clear that no one else was going to attribute any value to me, except myself.
So off I went while my coworkers slept.
It was scary.
Driving through tornado warnings is not a joke, and it is really no safer than huddling in a hotel or on a plane. But on the ground, you can pull over. You can seek shelter. You have phone service and can call for help. You can pee and eat and drink water when you need to. And most of all, you can avoid an inevitable flight delay. Plus, I am actually a VERY good driver and have a lot of experience driving through severe weather, believe it or not. So I was scared...but I believed in myself, and I trusted myself to pull over if I needed to.
(CLICK HERE for footage of what I drove through.)
I almost pulled over twice, both times when passing through actual tornado warnings. A "Tornado Watch" means tornadoes are possible; a Tornado Warning means there is actually a tornado on the ground somewhere nearby. And oh there definitely was. I couldn't see it, but I had never seen such intense lightning, and the wind was incredible. I was on an interstate so there was enough lighting to see whether debris was on the road. And I stuck close to a line of truckers, keeping a safe distance from them but always keeping their tail lights in my view. When they put their 4-ways on, so did I. And we plodded forward against hurricane-force winds, and we did not see any tornadoes. But I almost pulled over twice because the rain was so hard at those times that my wipers couldn't keep up. That intensity didn't last, so I was able to keep moving forward, somehow.
There were lots of breaks in the weather, as this system was made up of bands, so I stopped several times for coffee or snacks or to pee or stretch my legs.
MEANWHILE, my coworkers who had all stayed behind got up to find out their flight had been delayed, and as the day progressed, the tornado warnings (yep tornadoes still ON THE GROUND) reached Tallahassee, so the entire airport went into lockdown and everyone was herded into the airport stairwells.
As I was nearing the end of my drive around noon, the tornado warnings were lifted and the airport was reopened...but the stairwells had been outside security, so the entire airport had to go back through security screening.
Look at all the fun I missed out on by driving, you guys!
I could have been herded into a cold cement stairwell for an hour, like cattle in a pen!
And made to do TSA security screenings TWICE!
Plus sitting in an airport for three hours while someone else decided how my day would go!
And then having to FLY, again, after all of that!
They did manage to take off around 2pm, and landed in NOLA around 3pm.
By that time I had gone to the grocery store, checked in to the hotel, returned the rental car, and was dead asleep.
So, I don't care that it "worked out in the end."
It is clear to me that I have little value to society, and that overall I'm just another dumb animal, a little cog in a wheel or a plastic game piece to be moved around on a board by people who expect me to "deal with" whatever they decide is "the best option", ultimately, for THEM. But it is MY body, and MY soul, and it has value to ME even if no one else gives two fucks.
Today my employer chose to value the almighty dollar. And I chose to value myself.
And look at that, it paid off.
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After all of that we still had a show to do. I'll probably save that for my usual Thursday post.
Suffice to say that the nap I got before the sound check and show was not nearly enough, but it was better than nothing.
I have been touring for nearly a decade.
I have lived on a moving train for five years, and on a cruise ship for four months, and I have flown hundreds of times.
This was, by far, the worst travel day that I've ever had in my forty years of living.
As I told my sister later on: it was like a real-life nightmare.
Like a frightening dream about the worst flight turbulence; and then not being able to find an important item that you need; and asking people for help but they all just smile and shrug or walk away; and then being chased by a tornado. It was all so over-the-top and bizarre that it felt unreal, a nightmare come to life or like I'd died and been sent to hell.
I hope to never experience a day like that again.
