Friday, June 29, 2012

THe Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day written by Judith Viorst was one of my children's favorite books to read when they were little. It told about a day gone horribly wrong: from not getting a seat by the window in the car, to having to eat lima beans for dinner when he hated lima beans, to having to wear his railroad -train pajamas, when he hated his railroad train pajamas. I had a day like that last week. 
Our airplane was late because of a storm. Guess where we were trying to go? Yep, right back to where the storm was. Our original plane was an hour late arriving, so we were almost 2 hours late leaving.  The storms made our flight extra long, and very turbulent. Our next flight was now 2 and a half hours late, heading back into, yes, the very same weather pattern. I won't bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that we ended up at our fourth stop of the day, at 2:30 in the morning, exhausted, hungry and feeling like we had been tossed around like a ride at the fair. After bouncing around all day, I lay down on the quiet, still bed in my hotel room and woke up exactly that way in the morning. Sick. Because, during the chaos of the day before, I had apparently eaten something that didn't agree with me. If I didn't take the trip, the crew and all the passengers would be stuck because we don't have replacement flight attendants in this city. I soldiered on, got dressed and showed up for work. 
Well, guess what. The weather system that had wrecked so much havoc the day before, had now shown up here. Of course. A couple of hours later, we finally left. After one of my many trips out of the bathroom, a passenger stopped me and said "Am I going to make my connection?" 
After checking out her itinerary, I said "I think you need a Plan B."  
She started to cry, and said "I'm getting married tomorrow morning at 10 o clock in a city 3 hours away from the city I'm connecting to." 
Oh boy. I thought I was having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. I couldn't say "Why did you book the last possible flight on a Friday night for your very own wedding?  What about the rehearsal? When will you do your hair? " I didn't want her flat out losing it on me. So, as we talked about "Plan B", all I could think of was Alexander, and his really Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad day.. Wait until you grow up, kid. Then you'll know what a bad day really is.