United We Wait

Thursday night, the night before we left, was off to a weird start. I was gone most of the day, running errands and dropping Kate and Noah off with my parents. People are constantly asking me if I'll miss them, if they cried when I dropped them off, etc. The answers are a little and no. So many other parents who are adopting basically break down in tears when they talked about leaving their other kids and how they had to call multiple times a day. Am I the only one who is just fine with this setup? This would be little a honeymoon but for Jack coming with us.

"Excuse me," I say, leaning across the ticket counter, "Do we all have to sit together? Could Matt and I be upgraded somehow? Don't worry about Jack, he's 8. That's half of sixteen, which is almost an adult. We'll pass him some peanuts on the way to the restroom. No? Well let me ask you this - do we all have to be on the same flight?"

At my parents' house, Kate gave me a hug and said goodbye, her hand already reaching for the cereal cupboard. Noah knows something is up, as I've gone over this scenario everyday for weeks. He laid his head on my shoulder for awhile when we said goodbye and told me "Uh uh Mamaw." Which is his way of saying no, he doesn't want to stay at Mamaw's. But he didn't cry and probably passed out later in an ice cream coma. My mom said he asked for us the first day but didn't cry and was completely fine yesterday. We have been wiped for his memory apparently, replaced with people who pass out movies and popcorn constantly. I can't blame him.

The point of that long story was to say we were gone a long time yesterday and our dog tends to get stressed and lonely and expresses his emotions in several creative ways. I forgot to close our bedroom doors and Thursday night at bedtime I found a packet of poptarts and a hole in our sheet. It seems like he got the packet off the counter and tried to open it on our bed. I didn't sleep well Thursday and woke up at midnight with my hand caught in the hole in the sheet. I sleep facedown with no pillow in the shape of a swastika. I know, it sounds like the beginning of a ritual sacrifice. 

And then I began feeling a little crampy. Is it that time again? Crap, right before China. It feels like my ovaries are writhing in agony, saying things to each other like "We work so hard. She doesn't appreciate our efforts at all. She is uncaring." They are angry. And with good reason. I don't care.

We left our house at 345 am to head to the Jacksonville Airport. We got into Chicago at 730 am Central time. Our flight, originally at 1230 pm to Hong Kong, was delayed to 2 pm. I think it listed "Airplane Servicing" as the reason. Well shoot. A five hour layover turned to 7. 

We walked around, we found the kids play area, we walked those huge conveyor belts for people (Chicago has a lovely section of people movers between concourses. The lights are dim, it has soothing lights that come on and off over the movers with quiet classical music in the background. It was so soothing, it made us forget our rage for a moment), we played chess, we ate fries, we watched shows and airplanes taking off.

It was delayed to 2:30, then 3. We saw the plane arrive and people applauded. We boarded. It was a huge plane, 3 sections with three different rows of seats across. Maybe 200 people or so. We got on around 5 and sat for an hour, arranging our things and fluffing our terrible little pillows. I got an email from United Thursday morning, telling me it was 24 hours before the flight and I could call for economy plus upgrades. I called and got us all upgraded together. We we checked it, we were all scattered in different sections of economy. We I went up to the counter to check, they had to work for 30 minutes just to get me and Jack together. Matt was in another area. Surprisingly, he didn't complain much. 

After an hour or so on the plane, we were told that they left the food cart thing out for too long and it wasn't good enough to serve us. We would have to get off the plane so they could find more food. They said they were deeply sorry. Jack told me "They shouldn't say they're sorry, they keep doing this to us. That means they aren't sorry." Yup. A flight attendant tells us that they have been here since 10 am and can't fly on this flight because it would be too long. That makes more sense than canceling the flight over food.

It seems like a pretty obvious ruse. We can't leave on our flight because you left the egg salad sandwiches out too long? If they had taken a vote, I think everyone would just as soon live off the peanuts and just get there. 

So we all got off the plane around 530 pm and were made to stand in line to get meal vouchers. They told us to go eat and come back at 6 pm and they would have an update, with a tentative leave time of 8pm. At this time we won't be able to keep our Hong Kong hotel reservations. I begin to think that United is a shortened version of the motto "United in our pursuit of incompetence."

We got back to the counter and the announcement came on that the flight had been canceled. It begins to rain. United has no plan for the 200 people on the flight. People are on their phones, scrambling to ticket counters to get on flights to Hong Kong. I asked if they would please book us on Cathay Pacific or Korean Air because they are awesome. We got booked on a 330 pm Saturday flight to Hong Kong, which puts us in at 820 pm Sunday. We will miss the 430 pm flight to Nanning, Tali's province. We got a hotel voucher for the night. The lady next to us at the counter was livid and mean. Sometimes it pays to be nice. We got on Cathay Pacific (which is about 1k more than the United ticket, so a free ride is a good deal) and the lady working the counter at United was kind and made jokes with us. Instead of giving us the standard $10 food voucher per person, she gave us $30. We have $90 to spend on food before our flight today. So that was very nice.

We are told to go to baggage claim to get our suitcases. All of us are crowded down at Baggage Claim 2. There is nothing coming out. We wait for about 20 minutes. Suitcases start appearing. They are for another fight. We wait. We are told to go to another baggage claim area. We wait. Everyone is upset and talking about the flight. We give each other that look people give when they have been through something together. Solidarity, fellow sufferers, solidarity.

The suitcases begin arrive, people traveling back and forth between baggage areas as they are all over the place. They have been left out in the thunderstorm and are wet. Yes, of course they are. We make jokes with our fellow flight members about using the vouchers for wine.

At this point, we have been in the world's busiest airport for 12 hours. 

Jack has been a good sport, it was a tough day for us all but certainly for an active 8 year old. 

I twitch thinking about having Noah with us now.

We finally got to the hotel and took long showers and stretched out in bed. Jack watched Shrek from his bed on the pullout couch. I spent all yesterday evening calling our contact in China and rebooking the flight to Nanning. There are no seats for the Monday flight so we are booked on the Tuesday flight. We now have a whole day (Monday) in Hong Kong. We have to pay almost $400 to rebook the flight. I have to change reservations at two hotels in China. We called United and complained. The customer service rep sent an email to her manager or someone in charge. I ask her to kindly add in some swear words. Not the really bad ones, just enough to let them know we're serious. 

We're just relaxing in Chicago in the hotel now, waiting to leave for our flight. I hope to blog from Hong Kong tomorrow. 

The good things about yesterday:

-Lots of free vouchers for food

-The nice woman at the hotel desk took pity on us and gave us a promo code for the hotel wifi (it's normally $13)

-Nothing too major in my suitcase got wet. Baby socks and headbands

-We get to fly on a luxury airliner for free

-That big snafu last week about the civil affairs office being closed and not being able to get Talitha until Wednesday? Works out perfectly now - we couldn't have made it to Nanning Monday. Thank you Lord.

-The free wifi code so we could get the international codes and call China

The bad things about yesterday:

-Everything else

Waiting, hoping, and praying for a smooth rest of the journey.