Does Anyone Know The Way Home?

Things just went from bad to worse today.

The last day of an audit, especially a travel audit, is hectic. Everything needs to be closed up and finished up and packed up. It's not exactly convenient to go fly in for a day to do one more thing or to bring back something you forgot. As the audit manager, it all falls on me to have the entire audit packed up and get all of the paperwork back to Cleveland.

I packed some of our files in my huge suitcase. The rest of the files I packed in a box, and I had every intention of checking the box through as checked luggage at the airport. Hey, I'm allowed two bags. Bags, box, what's the difference. That was the plan.

I checked in on line for my flight that was scheduled for 4:00 p.m. You can check in up to 24 hours prior to your flight with Continental. It was probably around 11:00 a.m. that I had a chance to get on line and check in. When I check in, as long as I'm on the website, I like to check the flight details and airport status. They can sometimes tell when you check in if the flight is scheduled to be on time, or if weather will play a factor in delaying the flight.

At first, my flight was scheduled as on time, but the weather status for O'Hare airport listed average delays of 91 minutes. Geez, that didn't sound good. I left the website up in the background and continued to work. About a half hour later, I thought I'll look again and see what was up. I refreshed the page, and now the average delay at O'Hare was up to 124 minutes. That's two hours! I looked at the status of my specific flight, and the dreaded words were right there . . . FLIGHT CANCELLED. In big bold letters like that. Words cannot convey the feeling in the pit of my stomach at seeing those words. I really wanted to be sick.

As a side note, it's a long story, but my branch had hired a new auditor two weeks ago. Some idiot thought it would be a good idea to ship this new guy out to me in Chicago to train. That could be a whole other blog unto itself. I don't do well in stressful situations. Now I not only have to worry about getting me home, I have this new kid to worry about as well. Ok, I needed a plan. I called Continental. I obviously wasn't the only one trying to call them.

I waited on line for what seemed like forever, to be told by an agent that my flight was cancelled. Ok, I knew that. How do I get home? I was told that all flights to Cleveland had been cancelled for the day due to weather. The best they could do was to put us on a flight Saturday morning at 10:30 a.m. out of Midway. That was not a good option. I thanked the agent for her time, but thought I would look into a plan B. Now, to come up with a plan B!

Next call was to my boss. I told him about the cancelled flight and I impressed on him just how imperative it was that I get home. It had been a long hard week, and I did not want to spend another day in Chicago. I needed to get home. Lucky for him, he agreed that I should be home, and authorized a one way rental car charge if I chose to drive home. Hey, that worked for me.

I called Enterprise to see if I could keep my rental car and drop it off in Cleveland. In one word, no. They would not play the one way rental reindeer game. They wanted their vehicle back. I called our corporate office, as I know our person there that schedules a lot of travel has an "in" with Avis. I asked for help, and she assured me if there was a car to be had, I would have it. The woman performed a miracle and in ten minutes, I had a confirmation number for a car with my name on it!

We finished packing and headed to Avis to pick up the new car. From there to Enterprise to drop off the old car. Then, on the road.

According to mapquest, we were to drive 337 miles and in 5-1/2 hours I would be home. Mapquest didn't take into account a major car accident on I-90 nor the horrible weather. It took us an hour and a half just to get to downtown Chicago because of the accident, and then we had horrible weather from the east side of Chicago, through Indiana and into the western most part of Ohio. That was the part I drove.

It was snowing like heck, and the white outs were often and intense. All the while, I have this yutz saying "want me to drive?? I can drive! I don't mind driving!" Finally, I relented and actually just before the Ohio border I let him take over. Big mistake.

Here is a young male just out of college. I swear, most men that age should not be allowed to drive. I was actually praying for police. If I was white knuckled while I was driving, I was now practically out of my mind with him driving. In a snow storm, he thought it was perfectly acceptable to drive 80 miles an hour. And if that wasn't enough, he also thought that was a good time to start text messaging his friends. I actually had to tell him to slow down, quit texting and watch the damn road. On the good side, his speeding did help us get home in only 7-1/2 hours.

It's been a long day and I am overdue on my breakdown. A day like this deserves to end with a good long cry. If you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to do just that.