Home again

We stared at the desk agent dumbfounded.

We'd come to spend Christmas with Delta's family in Rochester, and here we we were at Rochester airport, waiting to take our flight back home, and the desk agent had just told us "sorry, but there were no seats available." (At least he was sympathetic, because they're actually nice like that, outside the city.)

No seats available? So what if we had stupidly chosen to travel standby during Christmas weekend. So what if we were too cheap to actually pay for a ticket to visit the fam for Christmas.

I mean, so what. Didn't he realise that this is the new age of generation Y, the Age of Entitlement?

I couldn't believe our crap luck. With unhidden resentment, I watched as all fifty paying passengers boarded the flights and they closed the doors. Why should they get on and not us (I mean, other than the fact that they'd paid for their tickets)?! And for a moment, I felt a sinking feeling in the vortex of my stomach, sucking me in. As though we might just be held in Rochester forever. What a ruinous ending to such a perfect weekend.

But then Delta suddenly exclaimed, "I know! Let's just rent a car and drive down!".

I looked at him dubiously. It was already past 6. Starting the drive now would likely not bring us into the city until 1am. And I had a whole day of work staring me in the face on Monday.

"You think?" I asked, doubtfully.

"Of course. Let's go! No time to lose."

And with that, he was off, striding across the airport to the Avis counter, where the lovely desk agent gave us a Hyundai Elantra to speed us back to the city (much to my excitement, because just before, they'd given us a Chevy HHR for the week, and if you've ever been in an HHR, then you know exactly why I was so excited to be in a Hyundai.)

And so started our little road trip. Got in the car, kicked off our shoes, turned on the radio, and motored across New York state through the late hours of nightfall. Even grabbed a meal in Wendy's, something we hadn't done in more than ten years. Singing along to the radio, we whizzed past Syracuse and Binghamton and the Catskills and Harriman, and suddenly, rather faster than we'd expected, we were back in the city.

As it turned out, not bad at all. As it turned out, through no credit of our own, quite the perfect ending to our Christmas weekend.