As we made our way through one of the 3 airports we were in on Sunday, Kevin said to me, “I think this is blogworthy.” Now, he doesn’t say that often so I am going to roll with it.

We were both awake super early compared to our usual time (me at 4 am and him at 5 am) and I was rushing about the house getting last minute things ready to go. Once everything was packed up we were out the door by 6 am and on the road to the airport in OKC.

I’d had a funny feeling about it all morning and had even awoken to a strange dream thinking we shouldn’t go on the trip, but we arrived at the airport and our flight was still scheduled as being on time. Through security (quickly, I might add — thank you, Will Rogers World Airport!) and on to wait for our plane, we boarded with a number of other people who had Philly in mind as a final destination. The first leg of our flight from Oklahoma City to St. Louis was pretty uneventful. I napped a bit, but experienced my first light case of motion sickness on a plane. It was mild and I think mostly due to my sinuses being a bit bothered already. Remind me to tell you about my worst case of motion sickness sometime. The story involves Scranton, PA, so, yeah, interesting.

We landed safely in St. Louis to find a number of messages on Kevin’s phone. Our flight from St. Louis to Philly was canceled and we soon confirmed it for a second time on arrivals and departures board.

I’ve seen plenty of episodes of that Airline on A&E to know how this sort of situation usually goes. There’s often screaming and/or drunkenness. However, neither Kevin nor I are prone to being screamy or drunk, so we were already ahead. We went to the counter and were helped pretty quickly by a Southwest employee. He got us on a flight headed to Dallas and then on to OKC.

The whole thing really wasn’t a big surprise to me. I’d checked the boards that morning online and all of the other flights from St. Louis to Philly had been canceled, so our chances weren’t good.

Instead of moping, we got bagels with cream cheese. Cream cheese makes everything better. Seriously. My friend, those are words to live by. Write them down. And my bagel had pepperoni and mozzarella baked all into the crust. Yum.

It was when we got onto the plane that things got interesting. We preboarded (for the first time in both of our lives) and seated ourselves at the very front of the plane. Another first for me. The preboarding pass was so that we could get off the plane and onto the next one as quickly as possible because we had such a slim window. So, at best we were going to be the first off the plane and we’d made our next flight. At worst…we wouldn’t feel a thing (a joke you don’t make while you’re on the plane).

What I hadn’t factored into the equation was The 3rd Seat. You know, we’re traveling as a couple and have done so on every plane trip I have been on. Up to this point we have made it through dozens of flights unscathed. No arm rest hogs, no one napping on our shoulders, no one reading over our shoulder. But this time…oy. A young man seated himself down beside Kevin and proceeded to start telling us his life story. Your classic oversharer. Then he got loud and started joking with the people around us and tried to get the flight attendants to sing. Numerous times. It continued and I turned to the window to take a nap, leaving my dear husband to fend for himself.

When I woke up we were about 10 minutes from touching down and the young man turned to both of us and asked, “So, what are your majors?” Later I told Kevin that we should take it as a compliment that we still look like we could be undergrads. It was after this question that I made my fatal mistake. I told him my degree was in writing. He then started telling me about how he had written a chapter book that was almost 80 pages long. And then. He got out his phone (we were taxiing) and started searching. He handed me the phone and asked me to read his poetry. I don’t even want to do that for people I know. Especially not for total strangers who aren’t asking for criticism, but instead it’s all, “Look! See how good I am at what I do!” It was about an ocean tearing him away from a girl. There was rhyming. Lots and lots of rhyming.

We got out of that plane fast.

On the way to our next gate we ran into the man who had been in the same situation as us early that morning. He was the only person on our flight who had decided to come back to Oklahoma City. He walked along next to us and asked us what we had been heading to Philly for.

“Christmas,” we said in unison. Kevin asked him what his trip was for.

The man kept his quick pace as he spoke, “Going to see my mom. She’s dying.”

Our day might not have turned out the way we had anticipated, but it wasn’t bad. And it most certainly could have been worse.

Dallas to OKC was much less eventful, minus the UTEP basketball team being on our flight and the bulk of them choosing to share their music with the entire plane, but whatev. We made it home and *drumroll* so did my bag. I was more worried about that than anything else. So many crazy transfers to make. Thank you, Southwest, for getting my bag home with me. It was pretty worse for wear, but I can deal.

It doesn’t look like we’re going to make it to see Kevin’s parents this Christmas, so we’re going to save our flights for this summer and try to get out to see them then. Not ideal, but not bad either.