Home for the Holidays

A week from today, I will be flying the friendly skies as I venture home to Texas for the holidays.

I’m already dreading it. The flight that is, not my family.

There will be several hurdles to overcome. First, I’ll have to fly out of O’Hare on Christmas Day and that means one thing:

Snow

I was once snowed in at O’Hare for twelve hours while making a connection from Dallas to Toronto. After five hours of watching flights to Toronto being cancelled, I asked the attendant if there was any update on getting there.

She checked and said, “Okay, the plane that will be going from here to Toronto is waiting to take off . . .from . . . let’s see . . . .

. . . . .Seattle!

Then, I have to fly to Houston and transfer to a little bitty micro-plane for the flight to my little bitty home town. The flights to my LBHT have been getting fewer in number and the planes to get there have continually been scaled down.

Actually, we now fly on one of those balsa-wood toy planes that you wind up with a rubber band.

It’s so funny, but when the pilot is about to land the balsa-wood airplane, he announces, “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve been cleared to land at Victoria Regional Airport. . . .” and I always envision a cow being herded off the runway.

There’s only one flight a day now to my LBHT, so if I miss the connection due to being held up at O’Hare (snow, remember?) or if they can’t find a rubber band for the balsa plane, then I’m basically screwed.

Even if my plane to Houston is on time, making the connection is quite an ordeal.

The Houston airport (George W. Bush International) used to have these nifty, automatic, monorail pods that efficiently shuttled you from one terminal to the other. Naturally, those worked for about three weeks and then broke down -- years ago. They've basically been replaced by refurbished school buses that come around about as often as a solar eclipse.

The only reason I keep flying to my little bitty home town is because any other major airport is so far away. (Texas is a big state, after all.) The little bitty airport is practically in my mom’s back yard.

Also, my cousin brings her kids to see me arrive. The moment I step off the plane, I’m hugged by little ones, Mom, my cousin, and maybe a friendly stranger or two. (Small towns are like that and passenger arrivals are a Big Deal there.)

So, once I’m there I always remark how convenient it is.

Let’s just hope it’s not snowing in late December in Chicago.

(Stop laughing)