On not breaking the mold

For most people, the end of a particularly arduous or long trip is the perfect time to tell everyone the story of how a simple two-hour flight stretched into eight hours. How the pilot said the plane would sit on the tarmac for three hours, but then took off anyway, only to make it all the way to Chicago before turning back and landing in Detroit, where it sat for many hours, first at the gate, then on the tarmac, as a ground stop at O'Hare dragged on into the night.

Blah blah blah.

These stories, while good for eliciting sympathy, don't really hold up as stories, since the protagonist spends all of his or her time in a seat, sleeping, fidgeting, complaining with the person sitting next to them, hoping beyond hope that the iPod battery won't run out. All the action is out of sight, in control towers, airline scheduling offices. Even the exasperated pilot, perpetual bearer of bad news, false hope, then bad news again on the intercom, is a passive actor in the drama, always waiting for instructions on what to do next.

A good travel disaster story isn't just about hardship, it needs action. That's why, even though it would have thrown a wrench into my weekend work plans, I should have got off the plane in Detroit while I had the (brief) chance. Sure, I'd probably be on a train or bus right now, fitfully trying to sleep off a bad hangover incurred in Ann Arbor the night before, but at least I would have had a story to tell about how I bucked the system, refused to believe lie after lie about when we would be taking off and got the hell off of the stuffy metal tube full of sleepy salesmen and testy weekend vacationers. I could tell you about how I met up with old friends, saw a new town, slept on a floor and made my way across Michigan and Indiana my own way.

But I didn't. I got home at half past midnight in the usual way, tired and lacking a good story to tell.