Monday, December 2nd, 2019
St. Paul, MN and Los Angeles, CA
It’s 8am CST and I am waking up for my second attempt to fly home. I quickly get ready and walk to the lobby to check out the breakfast buffet. It looks good, but I can not bear to eat anything this early. I fill up your tumbler with coffee and head back to my room. I am slowly getting ready when suddenly the electricity goes out. Luckily, I am mostly ready for the day and am able to use natural light to finish up.
I’m in the lobby just in time for my scheduled airport shuttle at 9am. Airport security takes less than 20 minutes. I even have time to enjoy a short breakfast at the most efficient airport cafe that I have ever visited.
While approaching the gate I realize that I cannot retract the handle for my carry-on suitcase. There is no way that this will fit into the overhead bin. I begrudgingly gate check the bag and feel guilty about passing a faulty bag onto the baggage handlers.
We arrive in LA as scheduled. It doesn’t take too long to acquire my damaged bag at baggage claim. The non-retracting handle is now broken off completely. I awkwardly roll your bag nearly half a mile to the rideshare pick-up area.
The drive home is short and when I arrive the lockbox is jammed. Luckily I am still able to use my phone to buzz myself into my apartment.
It’s now 2pm on the day after I was meant to come home. I am happy to be here, but vow to never vacation anywhere cold ever again.
