I can’t imagine anymore how anyone lives in a place where the weather has so much power over your life! Prince Edward Island was completely snowed in today, so though I was supposed to fly out, the day became instead a game of booked and rebooked flights, until this evening when I was waiting for a flight to Halifax in a dark but not-too-snowdrifty evening, and my flight was cancelled. Oh, it wasn’t because of the weather; they’d sent a crew person over who was now fatigued, and could not be asked to work another flight — even though the journey to Halifax lasts twenty minutes, which isn’t enough time for the trolley-dolleys to actually do anything.
But nevermind. I’d been cranky and temper-tantrumy today — in that way we can only be towards our parents, even though they’re the last people to deserve it. You see, it was my parents’ fault for choosing to live on this God-forsaken little Arctic outpost of an Island.
Having said goodbye to them this evening, thinking I wouldn’t see them until at least next summer, I thought, “The measure of a man is how he behaves under stress.” I wasn’t happy with my behaviour today. When my flight was cancelled, I found I couldn’t muster any indignation or upset. Sure, Air Canada totally screwed up on what was already a stressful day, but instead I got another chance to hang out with my parents and my nephew, whom I love (my brother and sister-in-law have already gone back “Up West”).
The hardest part of missing my connections is that I’d been upgraded to Executive Class from Halifax to Heathrow. Instead of trying to sleep sitting upright in a chair like a plank of wood, I was going to finally experience one of the fancy cryo-pods I’ve been walking past on my way back to the Steerage compartment.
But wait! When I called the hotline number to rebook my flight, it turned out that by upgrading me to an Executive ticket, Wendy here at the Charlottetown Airport twice-blessed me, because that meant I got to skip the queue (which, I heard on leaving the airport, could be from three to ten days’ wait for another flight) and get booked out tomorrow. And… I’m in Executive Class on the overseas leg of my journey. Wahey!
So it’s time to have a late dinner and a big ol’ drink with my beloved folks. This long day is done.