I can socialize and function without sleep, but not after cigars and wine with no sleep, so I couldn’t read the challenging book I’m into right now effectively on the plane (Marisha Pessl—real deal genius), and I felt I probably wouldn’t be writing anything of much value if I were to have broken out the journal (though that’s never stopped me before).

After an hour or so of general blabbing, most of the band was finding sleep. Some opted for the head tilted straight back look, mouths agape and slack-jawed, others curled up and nestled their noses in feculent Air France blankets. Out of sorts, stupefied but not a candidate for sleep, I was reduced to trifling video amusements like playing chess on the computer screen in the seat back in front of me. I played it a couple of what I thought were tough games and lost, but apparently it recalibrated itself to my dullness as I trounced it the next three games, it making moves a chimpanzee wouldn’t. condone.

Next I switched to Who Wants to be a Millionaire, only it was predicated on English common knowledge. I would burn all my lifelines on low-dollar questions having something to do with English school songs or mascots, and then I'd get up to $64,000 and it would start asking me about William of Orange’s lineage or the rules of cricket. It pissed me off, which is how I know that I was insane while on that flight. Getting honestly pissed off at the Who Wants to be a Millionaire game because it’s full of UK-oriented questions is the mark of a madman. After ten rounds of watching myself lose thousands of dollars, I really hit bottom: the Miami Vice movie. Hot chicks, explosions, machine guns, and ten thousand pounds of coke, it was Shakespeare.

It was a long dreary flight, again, though with relatively good food and wonderful flight attendants. That I was unable to make the most of it was entirely my fault. What happened at JFK, however, was not my fault. It was Delta’s fault.

We staggered off the plane in New York City to find that our flight to Manchester, NH had been canceled. Lovely. Delta is facing possible strikes soon, and is also in negotiations for a merger with US Air. When both of those two airlines combine their respective poor service into a single, huge, sucking transportation giant, it could be quite a travel experience.

In the middle of a conversation with a Delta desk clerk about other flights and accommodations, he walked away, went through a door and disappeared. He and a co-worker came out a different door wearing their coats and carrying daypacks. They left and that was it. There was no one else left to talk to at Delta. Three of us left the terminal to go to the ticket counter to try and get some information, and we attempted to get through security again.

There was a little hang-up since we had already been through, and over the course of working it out, we got into a conversation with the security personnel. There was a nice, black Irish-looking young woman who said, “I wouldn’t take a Delta ticket for free. Every night, there’s someone here from Delta, locked out, crying, old people. It’s ridiculous.”

We ended up renting a car and driving about four hours from the city to my city. I think I slept a little in the car, and again, wasn’t much fun company for the unflappable Adriana Giancoli, who drove her sick husband, and two beat up old men all the way from New York to Portsmouth. So the moral of the story is get plenty of rest before you travel and don’t fly Delta.

In spite of your miserable trip your writing is hilarious.
I could bore you with the story of when my daughter and son-in-law were due into Boston on different flights, at different terminals and neither had a cell phone. My daughter's flight got changed, the info screens were broke and the person behind the counter refused to give me info even though it was my own daughter! My son-in-law returning from Egypt got stuck in NY because of a storm. They eventually got put on buses but again I couldn't get any more info than that. It took over a dozen walks between the terminals and a lucky relayed call through my son to get us all together.

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