The Patron Saint?
March 16, 2004
If there is a Patron Saint of Travel, then the anti-Christ equivalent is my old friend Phil W. Phil and I have been friends since high school and he is one of the few, from that time period, that I have managed to keep in touch with. Phil has been one of my biggest supporters; he was the first of my pre-wrestling friends to come see me perform live and often made the drive from his home in Toronto to Buffalo, NY when I worked for ECW. Oddly enough I, almost with out exception, lost my match when he was in attendance. Perhaps he is more of a bad luck charm than I originally thought. (Then again it may have more to do with my less than stellar win loss record.)
I suppose I should get back on track and the point of this commentary, Air Travel and Phil's seeming curse there of. In addition to seeing me wrestle several times we have made a couple efforts to get together. Phil travels with his work and has on 2 previous occasions travelled to Calgary. We made unsuccessful effort to get together on both occasions, the last of which ended with a near 16 hour trip home from work, fraught with delays, missed connections, and all around misfortune. I arrived home at around 1am, a little late for a planned dinner. Phil, of course had an early flight home the next day so we never managed to connect.
This past week I received an email from my good buddy Phil, optimistically entitled. "Third time's the charm." He was going to be in Calgary again and hoped we would finally manage to connect. He was only going to be in town again for a short time, so we made similar plans. I was to get home Tuesday afternoon (1pm) so we figured on dinner at my place, Tuesday night. Unfortunately there wasn't a whole lot of charm taking place on Tuesday, thus my conclusion that Phil is the Anti-Christ equivalent of my Patrol Saint of Travel.
Tuesday morning started early and on no sleep. TV Monday runs till, 11pm and by the time I drove back to Newark, NJ from the arena, topped up the rental car with gas, and got checked into my hotel is was after Midnight. I then had to check my e-mail to confirm that Phil was still on for dinner. Things looked good, but it would be the last I could say that over the next 24 hour period. I was up at 5 am, showered and headed to the airport. I returned my rental car and checked in. I was scheduled for a 7:42 departure thru Chicago. I boarded my flight on time and promptly fell asleep. I woke up an hour later and we were still on the ground. At first I thought I was already in Chicago but when the flight attendant announced that the part they would require to fix their technical problem was unavailable, I realized we were still in Newark. They cancelled my flight and I headed back to see the gate agent and await my fate.
They booked me on the next flight to Chicago (10am) and informed me that I would miss my original connection and would now arrive in Calgary at 9:30 pm. I told them in no uncertain terms, something to the effect of, "No freak'in way!" I asked them to try routing me through Toronto, which I knew by experience was going to be my fastest way home. Air Canada had a flight to Toronto in 25 minutes and they booked me on it. I had a tight connection but would now be home at 2:15 pm. This would be 1 hour 4 minutes later than originally scheduled but a hell of a lot better than 9:30 pm.
I raced to the next terminal and boarded my flight, and promptly fall asleep with the comfort of knowing that I at least now will still be able to make dinner with my buddy Phil. I wake up another hour later and see that we are still on the ground and there is a nasty blizzard outside. It was a beautiful day when I boarded the damn plane but somewhere between closing my eyes and taxiing to the run way it started to snow. They announced that we were in line for de-icing and shouldn't be too much longer. Then the de-icing truck breaks and we spend another 2 hours on the ground.
When we finally get in the air I notice that my connection to Calgary has already departed so there is no way I'll be making it home by 2:15. The flight attendant comes by and informs me that I am now booked on a 3:10 pm connection and should be landing in Calgary by 5:30. This is getting a bit late. I live 30 minutes from the airport so I will be lucky to be home for supper. I phone Phil when I land in Toronto and tell his voice mail that I looks bad for dinner and it is at this point that I start composing this commentary in my mind. I even got searched at customs which almost never happens and I almost missed my connection.
I landed in Calgary at 5:45pm and it was almost 7 pm by the time I got home (16 hours since I first got up in Newark). I was exhausted, grumpy, and fed up with my day. I had voice mail from both Phil and my wife and they managed to coordinate everything and while the dinner was a bit late at least we managed to pull it off. I guess my day wasn't a complete loss. But I promise you all that I will never make plans with my buddy Phil on a day that I travel, and if you are ever sitting on a plane and hear them page a passenger named Phil W., GET OFF THE PLANE!
Till next week, and my WrestleMania XX thoughts,
Lance
credit stormwrestling.com
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