I awoke yesterday at St. Meinards in Indiana around 6am and after saying goodbye to the Benedicts I drove to Kentucky to catch my flight. When I checked in I got my seat assignments and my heart dropped, the flight from Louisville to Chicago was a window seat but the one from Chicago to San Diego I was in the dreaded middle seat. Now most people hate sitting in the middle but I think I hate it more than the average person. I am what you would call a little Closter phobic. I need to either see out the window to see the Glory of God out in the clouds or I need to be in the aisle so I can run to the emergency exit before the plane goes under water. When I asked "Darlene" about the availability of anything other than a middle seat she just stared at me and told me I had to wait till I got to Chicago to change it. Thanks Darlene, you rock my world.
I said a little prayer to God while sitting on that plane, I said "God you can do anything! You made the hippo. Please let me not be stuck in a middle seat for 4 hours, I trust in YOU!"
I sat on the little plane and we taxied out to the tarmac and then we stopped. The captain came over the intercom (why do they always sound like they just woke up from a nap?) and told us that all flights going into Chicago were grounded but it would probably only be for about 10 minutes. One hour later we were still sitting on the ground unless it only took 20 minutes to get to Chicago I was going to miss my flight and that's what happened. Well not exactly missed, you can't go on a flight that was cancelled. Super, I called home and my dad said, "Oh United just called and said they booked you on another flight." "Great! Which one” I asked. "I couldn't hear it was a recording and I was outside and they didn't repeat it,” he said. So I collected my luggage and booked it into O’Hare. I found a kiosk and checked in and found out that I was booked on the flight to San Diego that left in 2 hours and oh look, the middle seat! The line for customer service was at least a hundred angry people long and there was no way I was going to make it through before my flight left. So I went and parked myself at the gate to wait for the helpful agent to arrive. Still my prayer was, God, you can so do this. Minutes before the flight was to board she arrived, obviously mad that she had to be here and not, I don’t know, anywhere else in the world. I went up and said, "Hello, how are you today?" Nothing. "I have a little bit of a problem, see I have a ticket for the middle seat and I have an inner ear thing that tends to make me hurl if I don't sit on the aisle or by a window.’ She stared at me and said, “The flight is full ma’am.” With all my dignity I said to her, “well, I warned you, if I have to sit in the middle I will scream from the time we take off from when we land in San Diego, you have a super day!” I got on and sat in the death seat. I tried to calm myself with happy thoughts, maybe at least a cute grandma will sit next to me or my rich Irish Catholic doctor. No, a large man talking on his phone to his girlfriend about things that would make Howard Stern blush and a tweeker surfer dude that blinked way too much and kept asking me if I surfed in Mexico. “Oh dear God just take me home now!” was my final silent prayer just as the voice came over the intercom. “Ah folks, we are currently waiting for your Captain, seems he has not checked in yet and we need him to fly the plane, and should just be a few more minutes.” Forty minutes later the flight was cancelled. I collected my bags (thank God I did not check them) and ran like a crazy person back to the customer service where I went straight to the red phone to talk to Russia or a customer service person. “All of our flights to San Diego are booked ma’am”. I said nothing and let my silence speak for my disappointment. About 20 seconds went by until she said, “I can route you through Texas and Denver” I think bye now she felt my rage through the phone and she said, “ American Airlines has a flight leaving at 5:05pm I can put you on that.”
Now I started the 10 mile hike to terminal 3, I arrived and showed the man at the ticket booth my hand which I had written the flight information on. He looked down and typed looked up at me with distain before looking down again and typed some more before handing me my boarding pass.
I looked down and saw it, 19A!
A window!
That’s when I knew without a doubt that God is real and He listens.
I am convinced He canceled 2 flights so I could have a window seat. Sure He could have done it in a more timely fashion, but what lesson would that have taught me? Do I really think God thinks that much about little old me to go through all that trouble so I could have a window seat?
I do.
