Tales of a Four Hour Flight Delay

Thursday afternoon I busted outta my Brit Lit class like they were beginning demolition on Damen Hall.
I was headed home, FINALLY, after a two month hiatus and just could not wait to get to Midway Airport and be on my way back to Minnesota.
I got to the airport, zipped through security, and scanned the tv screens to determine the gate number. Flight 1323, service to MPLS/STP, Gate B2... arrives at... 10:25 pm?? Uh oh. I tentatively made my way to gate B2, willing the inevitable to not be true.
Sadly, it was.
My flight was delayed four hours.
An hour long flight? Delayed four hours?? Why Minnesota, why?! Has the land of 10,000 lakes become allergic to planes? All those years I lived in that great state, struggling to get to school in -35 degree weather because apparently that isn't grounds enough for canceling school (Thanks District 623), and now they are shutting down runways for a little freezing rain? You picked a great time to be weather cautious Minnesota, thanks a lot.
So I sighed, called home and told them the news, and put myself on the standby list. Now I had never had a flight delayed and had never had to deal with the stress of trying to get on as a standby, but let me tell you- it is NOT fun. Moving walkways became my best friend as I hopped from Gate B2 to 18 to 20 to 6 to try to hear my name being screamed by an overworked, underpaid flight attendant who has been dealing with pissy travelers all day.
Its amazing how chummy people become when stuck together in an airport. I'm all for a friendly conversation to pass the time, but some people seem to believe that this experience bonds us closer than a Saturday in detention a la Breakfast Club. I was standing in line behind an extroverted couple trying to get to Denver via Minneapolis and had waited for four flights on standby already. At first the conversation was friendly enough, Wow I can't believe how long this is taking, I thought Southwest was supposed to be dependable, Apparently there is only one runway available at the Mpls/StP, Man I'm about to get a beer and some deep dish harharhar, and other little tidbits of socially acceptable conversation. As we overheard the flight attendant explain to another customer there would be another hour added to the four hour delay we were expecting, the guy exasperatingly said, "Okay so how far is the drive to St. Paul? 7 hours? I have a free car rental at Hertz, lets all just drive up there. It will be so much easier!" His girlfriend nodded her head enthusiastically as he turned to the other member of our conversation, a middle aged woman who had been waiting for the same flight as me, and said "You weren't supposed to leave until 10:25 right?" and turning to me said "And you too? Yea I'm sure we could do that, I have the Hertz number here I bet they have a terminal right here at Midway, if we can't get on this flight I'm calling them and we're all going to drive up to the Twin Cities together!" I trained my eye contact on the pillar 90 degrees away from the desperate traveler's hungry gaze in order to separate myself from agreeing to this horror movie scenario in the making and the woman behind me paused and said, "Well lets just wait to see what the attendant has to say first..." This breath of fresh rationality seemed to break the man's neurotic obsession with the rental car plan and he said, "Oh... yea, yea. Lets do that first." Would it be rude to refuse this man's offer? I feel like he was a regular normal man before pulling out the lets-spend-8-hours-in-a-car-when-we've-known-each-other-for-10-minutes card, but does that really give him the credentials for me to trust him? Or for him to trust me for that matter- I could be a sociopathic nympho with the habit of identity theft and a penchant for knife fights, but he is so desperate to get to the Twin Cities that he would share his Hertz rental with me sans background check? People gotta travel safer these days...
Speaking of violence, I ran into another lovely fellow waiting in a different standby line about 10 minutes later. I lost Desperate Car Rental Man + Girlfriend after they scurried to the 3220 flight and I went to try my luck at an earlier departure, and so I was standing in line behind a grizzly older man and his companion. Being nosy, bored, and too lazy not to listen, I tuned into their conversation. "The best way to smoke those Pak-iss-tan-ees outta thur caves isn't ta spend all that money on special agents and whatnot, but just get a bunch of them cinnamon bommbbs and that'll suck the oxygen right outta thur- suffocate them all! Or we can jist get a big'un in there and blast the tops off all them mountains, that'll get rid of it." Um, what? I stood, jaw literally dropped, my face completely lack of any emotion besides utter astonishment that there was a person out there who was so uninformed and out of touch that he could be saying these things without a hint of sarcasm or joke. He says it would be so simple to kill these people, KILL THESE PEOPLE. PEOPLE. Real human beings, being mentally suffocated by a compassionless, crotchety old man. And then to even insinuate that the problem could be solved by blowing off the tops of mountains, therefore killing a small percentage of people who have done anything wrong in the least, and a huge percent of the innocent civilians who have lived in those mountainous regions for hundreds of years, who haven't even attempted to rebel or cause harm to the world around them even though they are suffering from poverty, malnourishment, and a barrage of violence everyday because their government is too concerned with fixing a thousand year old conflict to assist or protect them? Are you serious? Yes, sir, they are obviously the ones to blame. But that wasn't the end to his tirade, he moved to domestic issues: "And those kids down at Fenger High? I'd go in there with 50 of my men, we would have them straightened up in two weeks." And that was when I stopped listening. I'm so glad that you think the best way to stop violence is with more violence. Let's ignore the fact that these kids are living in conditions paralleled only by third world countries, or the fact that their lives are dictated by the crack dealing gangs that rule the projects and low income neighborhoods of the South Side. Obviously, they are unruly because no one has given them a good beating in awhile. I'm so glad that I have your expertise on this subject.
At this point, I was frustrated to say the least. Not only had I been invited on a road trip by complete strangers, forced to listen to the monologue of a warmonger, and eaten half of an overpriced, undercooked McDonald's burger, but I had been waiting two hours to get on a flight that was supposed to have delivered me to the Motherland Minnesota an hour previous. Finally, the flight attendant announced that she would be calling out the standbys for flight 303, and me and the 80 other frazzled, Minnesota-bound passengers crowded around the check in desk, hoping fervently that our name would be called next.
A typical middle aged midwestern man (windbreaker, baseball hat, architect glasses, nike athletic shoes) standing next to me (in typical middle aged midwestern man fashion) started a chummy conversation: "So you been waiting around long for your flight?" Me, being fresh out of my last two nightmare encounters with standby passengers, was a little short at first- who knows what this guys hidden creep trait is? But, (in typical nice wholesome midwestern girl fashion) I kept up my end of the conversation, even explaining that I went to school at Loyola and was a journalism major. As soon as I divulged those details, I felt like I may have overshared- not that my school and major are personal details but why would this guy really care? Most times when I tell people my major, they give me a small symphathetic smile and nod (insert quick montage of headlines screaming the demise of print media, while "Another One Bites The Dust" plays in the background) thinking how very noble I was to be strutting into an employment graveyard. But instead, the man suddenly seemed genuinely engaged. "Journalism? Well thats great to hear, I'm a Fellow at the Reynolds Journalism Institute at Mizzou." Ah! These are the times I wish I could pause time and look to the heavens and say "Really God? That easy? Thanks, I love when networking opportunities are literally handed to me." Unpause. We discussed schools and journalism, and he commended my choice in Loyola saying that "there is something to be said for studying journalism in the city". This, from one of the directors of one of the top undergrad journalism schools in the nation. Suggesting my school would give me an advantage over those Missouri grads. Just wonderful. He also asked my opinion on Loyola's new School of Communications facilities because they were planning a conference there for next summer, and then gave me his card saying I should contact him if I have any questions or will be around for the conference. Oh my goodness. I couldn't believe how lucky that I happened to run into this particular person at this time, and he happened to be so friendly and interested in discussing journalism- and this is why I love people from the midwest. Even when my day cannot seem to get worse, someone with a natural sense of friendliness and optimism in the world comes along, and instantly everything takes a turn for the better. Soon after he and his wife got called and boarded the plane, and I followed them fifteen minutes later.
Walking down the carpeted tunnel toward the plane my disposition was sittin' pretty. Yes, I would be getting into Minneapolis two hours late, yes, I almost became the next headline story on the local news, and yes, I think I may have discovered the next Polpot, but I was headed home and now had an in at Mizzou in case Loyola was bombed (probably by said crotchety old man) and I needed to transfer. We pulled out of the boarding area and were headed toward the runway when suddenly the plane stopped and the pilot came on the loudspeaker: "Sorry to delay your trip just a little longer folks, but it appears the secret service has shut down the Hubert Humphrey Terminal. We are waiting for clearance but it will likely be another 30 minutes." Seriously? The Secret Service? Is Minnesota so desperate to keep me out that they have employed the most powerful branch of security in the USA to delay my arrival further? Apparently Joe Biden was flying out of Minnesota, so they had shut everything in the airport down, including the ONE RUNWAY AVAILABLE. There's a great way to reach out to voters Vice Prez, trick them into thinking they are finally on their way home, then sadistically make them wait on the tarmac another 30 minutes while you Air Force One it back to Washington. Cool, executive branch, cool. However, a mere 10 minutes later, the pilot announced we were clear and finally, I was on my way home to a weekend of old friends and homecooked meals little thanks to Southwest Airlines, and no thanks to desperate traveling couples with a free Hertz rental, ornery old warmongers, and the Vice President of the United States.
All for a one hour flight.