[kipperfan]

Somewhat off topic (well, not really) but some (most) people become absolute animals in these massive flight delay situations, I never would have imagined how bad it actually can be if I hadn't experienced for myself earlier this year while heading down to Nashville for Bonnaroo. That was in June and at the time you might remember (as it was all over CNN/other networks) a bunch of tornadoes going through Illinois/Michigan/Wisconsin and shutting down airports all over the mid west.

I was supposed to fly to Chicago to meet a friend and get a connecting flight to Nashville, but due to the weather O'Hare shut down for a time and we had to land in Minneapolis/St.Paul. Of course nobody on that flight wanted to be in Minnesota, and there was about another 10-20 planes in the same situation at the same airport, and thus massive chaos began to ensue. First we sat on the tarmac in St.Paul for over an hour due to the massive influx in planes, this got all the passengers good and riled up (but no note passing that I'm aware of). Then we finally got a gate and the cabin crew told everyone to go inside the airport and find "an open desk" to speak to an agent about getting a new flight booked. Well, as soon as that was said you would have sworn a colony of fire ants had just been released on the plane, because people were almost diving over seats to try and beat each other off that airplane. It only got worse as we got down the tunnel, (of course) every desk had a lineup of what had to have been 20-30 people, half of them on cell phones the other half yelling at either airline/airport employees or each other. I saw one fist fight break out over someone "budging" in line, security had to haul them both away.

At this point I was like "there has to be a better way!" so I took a risk, left that level of the airport and went back to where the check-in desks were and sure enough, I'm in luck! I get to the Delta desk and there was 4 people in front of me!

And then everything started getting worse. The line wasn't moving, 5 mins, 10 mins, an hour, still not moving. Finally, after literally one full hour one person is set to leave the clerk and we're all set to move up one spot, until some Swiss guy walks up to the desk, out of nowhere and proceeds to start talking to the clerk as though he was next in line! Well that was the straw that broke the camels back. There was an old women with (what I presume to be) her grandkids standing right in front of me, well dressed and seemed a very polite women the entire first hour I stood behind her. But when this Swiss guy bypassed the line she lost her sh**. She yelled at the top of her lungs: "WHAT THE F***?? WHO THE F*** DO YOU THINK YOU ARE YOU DIRTY STINKING EURO?!" And then she started to actually go towards him in the line, I literally thought I was going to see an old granny attempt to assault a rude, short Swiss man in the middle of the St.Paul airport and I think I would have if not for her 10 year old granddaughter bursting into tears just as she started to make her move.

I could ramble on about that ridiculous night for a few more paragraphs, but I'll spare you all, it was more of the same for the next 2.5 hours until I was able to get my flight re-booked for the next morning. I then made my way to the info booth, asked the location of the nearest bar, of course all the airport bars are now closed as its 10pm, had to go all the way to the Mall of America, but found a Buffalo Wild Wings, got really drunk watching some game (maybe game 3?) of the cup finals, then back to my bed for the night, the floor of the airport. Because not only were all the hotels near by booked, all the seats in the entire airport were being slept in by the time I got back!

Heh, what a wild time.