Part 2: Brother’s Graduation / Unreal Travel Variance

So we get to bed around 4 or 5, only to get up at 7:00 so he can go pick up his cap and gown and all that. We both feel like death so we got dressed in like ten minutes, he put a suit on which I'm sure he regretted once he got out into the 95 degree sun. We ran to McDonalds breakfast, I got some coffee, the standard mcmuffin and B, E, & C biscuit, and for some inexplicable reason, my brother orders the "Deluxe Parfait." Its this yogurt and granola thing that doesn't exactly fit with the rest of the breakfast lineup, which means I'm not getting it. Plus, since when does yogurt make you feel better after drinking? Reminded of when a buddy of mine got "The Big Fish Sandwich" at the Burger King drive-in coming home the next day from a New Years eve party while home from college.

We get to campus, he gets his cap and gown and I go find my family in this sea of about 15,000 people, they found a good spot under a tree in the shade, so the 95 degree heat was bearable. There was hahaa lot of bottled water floating around, so that helped, but I still felt like we could possibly see the egg mcmuffin again. Fortunately I kept it together, although my brother, as I found out later, was much less fortunate with his parfait. I then noticed some woman wearing a set of ear rings where the left was a little diploma, and the right was a little tassle, and laughed for about 20 minutes at her expense. I had to wonder how long she'd had those bad boys in the holster.

Then the ceremony starts, the Chancellor gave a mediocre speech for 15 minutes, then they started going through the various graduating classes, you know, the Bachelor of Arts, sciences, Accounting School, etc. Ironically, in his speech the Chancellor used the word "Tedious" not once, but twice. They start reading names, then it dawns on me that they are going to read every single graduating name, and each kid had to walk across the stage. There were over 1,600 kids graduating. SIXTEEN HUNDRED NAMES! I seriously couldn't believe it, it was every bit as brutal and yes, wait for it, tedious, as it sounds, and it took well over 3 hours. But hey, at least I wasn't in the cap and gown, in direct sunlight, with zero access to water like all the graduates were. Way to work that one through Vanderbilt, your students are graduating and you have them baking in black cloth in direct 95 degree sunlight for 4 hours, and you make no effort to get them water. Nothing says "Thanks for the memories, not get the **** out of here" quite like that little sendoff. I'm surprised no one passed out, maybe they did but no one noticed because they just kept reading the names.

We went out to lunch, but neither my brother nor I could eat much, its a good thing he ordered a full rack of ribs that pretty much went straight to the to-go container. Then we went back to his place and crashed immediately, so I said alright I might as well just get to the airport so I can return the Yaris and get home for some much needed sleep. So I said goodbye to my brother and rolled out.

While I'm driving to the airport it starts thunder storming, complete with lightning, and I can't help but remember I have to connect in Memphis. It appears to clear up as we're boarding the plane, we get on and head to the runway and things look good. Then the captain gets on the horn and explains that we're at the back of the line for takeoff because planes are late leaving because of the weather. After 30 minutes, we're informed that we have to head back to the gate for more gas, because planes are holding over Memphis because of too much weather-related traffic. As we pull up to the gate, it starts lightning again, and understandably its not very intelligent to gas up an airplane during an electrical storm. We even de-planed and chilled by the gate for a little while during this.

By the time we land in Memphis, I'm not optimistic about my chances. While we're taxing I decide to use my 7 minutes of iphone juice to check my next flight's status, and sure enough it says "in flight," ****. Then the woman next to me, who was very pleasant btw, says she lived in Memphis for a year and doubts there are any hotels available because of "Memphis-Fest." I say "what's that" almost dreading the answer. Apparently its a whisky & BBQ festival that is a big enough deal that people drive from all over to take part. Sure enough, she was right on the money and there were no hotel rooms, nor were there any flights out, and Delta's next flight to Charlotte was at 8:30, the NEXT NIGHT. No way in hell was I going to sit there for 23 hours. I found an outlet and called my wife (at this point the charging cord was always in pocket with the phone), and she did some fast research and found 2 flights on USAIR and United for 8am the next morning, direct flights thankfully.

Next up, I had to get on one of these, and that took almost 3 hours. I asked 2 people who said it wasn't possible, then another who said it was possible, but I needed to call the courtesy phone to Delta's national phone support. I waited 50 minutes on hold, finally got someone who said she had to check with her supervisor, which took another 20 minutes. Then she says she can't do it, that I need to speak to a Delta Supervisor in person at the airport. Now its really late, around 10:30, and I'm worried there aren't any around. Thankfully there's one left, Lekeila, and I found her and told her my story about what the phone person said about not being able to move me to another airline. Lekeila shakes her head and goes "Emmmmmm Hmmmmm, she lied to yooouuuuuu."

Nice, great to hear. I spent over an hour on the phone and the person who's job it is to help me, didn't feel like it. I'm starting to see a pattern at Delta between her and the pilot from the day before. Anyway, Lekeila is an ass-kicker and the most helpful Delta person I encountered on the entire trip, I guess that's why she's a supervisor, I told her that and thanked her profusely. Seems to me that she should be running the company. So she spends 20 minutes on the computer and gives me very good directions on what I need to do next, and I have a ticket for the USAIR flight at 8am, ship it.

Now, I have to find a place to crash in this airport, and of course, you can't spend the night by the gates behind security where there's carpet, you have to be in front of security by the check in desks, where there is tile. Amazingly, this airport had a room full of air mattresses they were blowing up for people, along with blankets. There were about a hundred people in this situation, so there mattresses everywhere, usually clustered around the power outlets. I went up on the balcony and found an isolated spot where I probably wasn't going to get robbed, and I had my own outlet (which is key so I could make phone calls) and tried to get comfortable. I called my wife and we talked for a while and I gave her all the updates. Then I pulled out the ipad and watched "The Color of Money" which I had on there, such a great gambling movie. I'm so exhausted at this point I can barely think straight, I only had 2 hours of sleep the night before and now I'm at the point where I'm trying to just do one thing at a time and not forget my bag somewhere. I do manage to crash for a couple hours, but its not exactly the most relaxing sleep when every time you shift or wake up, you have to feel to see if your stuff is still there. Plus the automated intercom announcements don't shut off at night.

Thankfully, there were no more issues, I was up at 5:30 when the airport got noisy, I packed up my **** and returned the air mattress, went through security chilled by the gate for 2 hours. I got home at about 11am Charlotte time, took a shower (I hadn't showered since before I left town, nor had I slept for more than 5 hours) and crashed for 5 or 6 hours. That night I slept for 10 more and was still useless the next day.

So yeah, pretty hilarious that a 1 day trip could have so much bad travel variance, but the actual time in Nashville was great and I think next time (a buddy is getting married there in August) I'll just suck it up and drive the 6 hours each way, actually no, that probably won't happen, I'll just be sure to book a couple months out so I can have a direct flight, and it won't be on Delta.