Remember that bit in Planes, Trains and Automobiles where the stranded flight is cancelled and the airport gate sign says “DESTINATION: NOWHERE”? Mom and Dad just sort of had that.
They were scheduled to fly from PDX to Washington, D.C. today to visit my brother’s family. I had a plan (and as Black Adder said, it was “so cunning you could stick a tail on it and call it a weasel”), and it mostly worked: they picked me up on their way into Portland, we drove to the airport, and I drove the car away and ran errands. When I got home, I found a message: their flight? Cancelled. Them? Needing a lift. Because the three of us collectively decided “What the hell,” they rode the Airport Max (first time my dad’s ever ridden Portland’s light rail) to the Oregon Zoo station, where I picked them up. “Good thing you hadn’t decided to go to Roseburg today,” Dad said as we headed back to my home.
They had found out within two minutes of me leaving the airport. “He’s going too fast in the wrong direction,” Dad said then.
They were in good spirits by the time I saw them, by the way – Dad had done most of his swearing already – and they are preparing to try again Monday, if weather permits. (Oh, by the way, the reason the flight was cancelled? Heavy snow warning in D.C. and Northern Virginia. As in two inches of snow per hour.) They dropped me off at home, and they’re now en route to theirs.
The hell with it: I’m going back to bed…