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January 28th, 2009

Winter Wonderland

After a long Pay Per View week, all everyone wants to do is get home. The first leg of my flight home, from Indianapolis to Cincinnati, was scheduled to leave at seven this lovely winter morning. Mother Nature had other plans, dumping seventy million tons of snow on the Hoosier state, forcing Delta Airlines (Motto: Nothing can stop us. Except snow, rain, wind, darkness, and direct sunlight) to cancel the flight.

Amazingly, Delta canceled the flight one full day before takeoff, before the majority of the snow fell. Delta’s Department of Mass Confusion – Timewarp Division kicked into overdrive, and somehow, inexplicably, I ended up on a flight that left Indy later, and got me home a full hour earlier than the original flight.

When something seems too good to be true… it usually is.

Mother Nature, being the bitch that she is at this time of the month, still had other plans. And the city of Indianapolis, which certainly knows how to host an enormous auto race or two, obviously has no idea what to do when Mother Nature is on the rag.

The one and only plow in all of Indianapolis srpung into action – after being de-iced that is.

But, the law of cause and effect being what it is, de-icing the one and only plow evidently used up ALL OF THE DE-ICING fluid at the airport, creating what the gate agent airheads with the microphones called, ‘An Unfortunate De-icing Situation’ Yes, that’s right. When it’s cold, airplanes need a special, toxic spray to keep the ice off the wings, which, in turn, keeps the planes from crashing on takeoff. So, de-icer would seem an important ingredient to have on hand, no?

Not here! The airport ran out of de-icing fluid!

In the middle of winter.

In the middle of a blizzard.

Brilliant!

The gate agents have attempted to board the plane a few times, but in true Delta Chinese Fire Drill fashion, they’ve made us sit down again. Sorta like musical chairs, minus the music, and the fun. Friends of ours that boarded the earlier flight have been texting us from the runway, where they’ve been parked for hours, asking if we can arrange a pizza delivery.

Update Posted at 10:04 AM

Though the board has a departure time, most flights are now on what is called ‘Unfortunate Indefinite Status’, and there is still that ‘Unfortunate Snowstorm’ dumping loads of fresh snow, further burying the ‘Unfortunate Planes’, which will no doubt require more de-icing fluid, which nobody seems to have right now. Unfortunately.

All in a day’s work.

Time to settle down with the rest of the refugees here in Indianapolis for a long winter’s nap.

UPDATE: Snow removal reinforcements arrived, possibly from the nearest ski mountain. A gigantic snowblower took to the taxiways and blew snow all around, creating a huge man-made blizzard.

Hey! Wait a minute! Does Fed-Ex have de-icing juice?

They do! FedEX to the rescue! Someone must have gotten wise to FedEx’s hoarding, and a new supply of ‘Type Four Deicer’ was stolen… err… borrowed.

And a mere six hours after arriving at the airport, we did the Delta Do-Si-Do for the last time, climbed aboard, strapped in, and shut up as… nothing much happened. For about an hour. Then, the de-ice trucks found us. We sat on the runway while we de-iced, and re-de-iced, and finally winged our way to the warmer climates of Atlanta.

All in a days work!

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Author: frenchy

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