In flight from Washington, DC to New York City, June 29, 2006

I am sitting on UA7310 service to New York—JFK. It is nearly four hours passed the time that this plane should have departed from the Washington—Dulles tarmac.

I am reflecting on my plight. First, it was commiserating with a thin man with hints of silver in his hair from Senegal. We both want to catch our ~6 p.m. flights out of the country. However, our problems are easily dwarfed—compared to the woman from South Carolina sitting diagonal in front of me. She has an absolute right to reflect, commiserate, and complain.

I am awed by the patient woman’s three DAY layover in Dulles Airport. One of a group of 18 headed to Kenya for a mission trip—18 out of 5200 stranded by weather-related delays and cancellations on Tuesday, June 27th. Yet, as sad as her story of sitting at the bottom of the standby list and calling 800 numbers until someone on the not quite toll-free line would help her…

I am worried about my own situation. I have never flown internationally before. I have never been to the JFK Airport. I have never been to Russia. And I fear that I will still not be there come the predetermined arrival time printed on my itinerary.

I am convinced now, to boot, that the only thing worse than getting in a terminal with a connecting flight to catch and watching the estimated departure time of your flight vary on some sort of sinister sine curve is enduring all of those maladies minus your cell phone. I couldn’t just call home and hear a reassuring voice or call my program coordinator (Liza) and explain my situation. I just sat there… stewing in a community vat of frustration and pessimism.