Stranded in Dallas

Well, not taking a car seat with me on our flight came back to haunt me. Why, yes, I did get stranded overnight in Dallas on Friday with a one-year-old, how did you ever guess?

So Mom and Daddy drove William and me to Baton Rouge on Friday afternoon. Turns out, the incoming flight was delayed out of Dallas, so we were having to wait on that plane to arrive. But then, the airport inexplicably let another plane full of passengers depart to Dallas on a plane that arrived from Dallas before ours arrived, even though our flight should have bumped that second flight. Of course, I couldn't get a person on the phone to find out what I should do, and they only had one gate agent in BR working the desk. And of course, she was swarmed by other annoyed passengers, including one woman whom I barked at when she tried to get in line before me. I think she was sufficiently scared by the sight of a stressed-out mother because she was ingratiatingly nice to me the rest of the time. She was too old to be dressing like Paris Hilton anyway, if you ask me. But I still didn't manage to get ahold of the gate agent to ask what in the world I was going to do if we missed our connection. So I was starting to freak out a little. Okay, more than a little. What would we do if we missed our connection, I fretted.

Which, of course, we did. By the time we got to Dallas, it was about 40 minutes or so after our connecting flight departed to California. I was especially irritated to see that if they had let me and my fellow passengers depart when they let the second flight leave, we could have made our connection. Grr. The fact that William and I were both hungry because we hadn't eaten dinner yet, due to the delays, was not helping matters.

And because it was Dallas and I have bad luck in Dallas, I couldn't get a single person to help me. There I was, pushing the stroller from gate to gate, from info desk to info desk, just trying to find an actual human being who could freakin' tell me what to do to get on a plane to California. After about six tries, a lovely woman named Bernice finally took pity on me and helped. I was so tired and frustrated that I just couldn't believe we were going to be stranded. I started to cry. There I was, with tears rolling down my cheeks, because I just wanted to go home. But of course, the best she could do was book me on a flight the next morning. I looked at her in horror, then down at the (cranky) baby in his stroller. No way were we hunkering down in the airport all night.

So Bernice called hotels until she could find one that would provide a free shuttle service AND had a crib available, which you would think would be incredibly common in the greater Dallas area but apparently not. But of course, the airline wasn't willing to pay for my hotel. I did get a discount rate, what they term a "distress rate." Boy, is that an appropriate name or what! Of course, my suitcase with all our stuff was locked up and I'd have to do without it. Great. All I had with me was the diaper bag. Luckily, I at least had a clean T-shirt and a clean pair of underwear in there for me, and a clean outfit for William. But I had no toiletries at all. And no milk for William, either, although I did have a few jars of food.

Pushing William in front of me, I forlornly stumbled into the closest airline shop and bought a toothbrush and toothpaste for me and a navy T-shirt for William to sleep in. Then we went outside and waited for an hour for the hotel shuttle. We must have seen fifty other shuttles whiz by, stopping to see if we were their next customers, but ours was nowhere in sight. Finally I called the hotel and said, in very tight tones, "We were told that a shuttle would pick us up at Gate B7 twenty minutes from the time we called. That was an hour ago. When do you expect someone to be here because I have a small child and I need to get him fed and to bed."

The shuttle arrived a few minutes later. I was under the impression it would be an actual shuttle. But nope. It was a minivan. A minivan without any available car seat or booster seat. I buckled William directly into middle bench seat seatbelt and held my breath the entire ride; that's when I was cursing myself for not having a carseat. The one time I don't have one with me. God.

After we arrived at the hotel and checked in, I asked about getting some milk and food. The hotel seemingly only had two staff members: Iwa, the front desk guy, and Jose, who did everything else. Iwa got on his trusty little walky-talky and summoned Jose back again from the shuttle bus driver's seat and asked him to take us over to a 7-11 so I could buy some milk and some food (and deodorant) for me. By that time it was after 9 p.m. After I made a mad dash through the 7-11, Jose the Shuttle Driver dropped us off at the hotel again, and I took William upstairs. But...no crib. I fed him dinner and then called the front desk. Apparently, Jose was the only one who could fetch us the crib...and he was going back to the airport to retrieve more distressed travellers like us. Iwa, of course, couldn't leave the front desk. So we waited another hour for good ol' Jose to deliver the rather scary-looking, Romanian-orphanage-style crib with its iron bars and lumpy mattress.

I gave William a short bath and then dressed him in his new T-shirt. He was not amused by his new bed.















I finally brought him into bed with me, where we fell asleep together, nestled in the pillows, watching "SportsCenter." Then I transferred William into the crib, where he slept the rest of the night. Meanwhile, I tossed and turned in the bed, worrying about whether our suitcase would get permanently lost and if we would have trouble getting home the next day.

The upside of the whole experience was that at least we got breakfast in the hotel before leaving for the airport. William got his milk and Cheerios--and a banana. I had orange juice and Frosted Flakes, a childhood fave. And we didn't have any trouble with our flight on Saturday morning; we even sat next to a very nice grandmother who was happy to play with William and hold his flashcards for him. And our suitcase made it to Palm Springs, too. Also, and thank goodness for this, that should be our last time flying for awhile. Incidentally, the weather on Friday? Just fine. Leave it to me to get stranded in Dallas overnight when the forecast is warm and sunny and perfect.

But man. I hate DFW. It is the Black Hole, the Bermuda Triangle of Airports. I have never had a good experience there. My parents have gotten stranded there before, too, so I guess the DFW bad karma affects the whole Larson clan. I'm hoping it doesn't rub off on the Wyckoff side of my family.

So that's the whole sad tale. Aren't we pitiful?

Here is the moral of this sad tale. Actually two morals: 1) Be better prepared for the worst, because if you're going to be anywhere within 200 miles of Dallas, you can pretty much count on the worst; and 2) There are some things you just can't control. So, stick a toothbrush, deodorant and clean underpants in your carry-on bag, even if you think you don't have room for them. And find a way to be as Zen as possible if the worst does happen, which again, if you're near Dallas, it will. I think I can do the first part. The second one, I need to work on.