My Worst Valentine's Day

I noticed from various social media sites that you all seemed to have wonderful Valentine's Days, at least those of you who shared, and I am very happy for you all. My day was uneventful and that was wonderfully expected. This is not a story of yesterday, but yesterday from 2007.

Om February 14, 2007, I was in Colorado Springs, Colorado, staying at the Broadmoor with a flight scheduled to leave at 11 AM MST. Around 7 AM local, my boss called me and suggested I stay another night (on the company's dime) because of the storm that was scheduled to hit the Eastern Seaboard. I called the airline (Major Carrier, based out of ORD) and they told me that I would be able to be home on time. I called my boss back and explained that I wanted to be home with my-then-wife and my child for Valentine's Day. When I arrived at the airport, I asked the nice young woman if I would be able to get home before I checked my bags. She cheerily replied, "Of course!" (Later, I would find out that she was lying to me and my flight from ORD to ALB had already been cancelled. Nice, no?) I called my-then-wife (which for the purposes of simplicity, I will refer to as MTW going forward) and told her I would be home soon.

I remember the flight well, watching 30 Rock on my iPod, and reading some classically awesome William Gibson. When I landed in Chicago, it was really cold (frigidly cold) and there was snow blowing sideways. I was...concerned. As soon as I landed and saw people all over the airport, not waiting as much as having a look that I associate with grainy black and white films of the liberation of German work camps (not the death camps and I am not making an equivalence between being stuck in a modern airport with a lot of amenities to the horrors of the Holocaust. I know that if I do not include this, someone is going to snark about it and well, that is unnecessary...I mean, come on!) and I freaked out. I looked up at the Arrivals/Departures Board and my flight was cancelled. I called MTW and freaked out. I was not in a good place. MTW was calm and supportive and was in Albany with our four year old and probably worried about how she was going to handle the storm. It was not my finest moment.

Anyway, after standing in line for what seemed like an eternity of of fluorescent Hell (think the DMV but much much worse) but was only ninety minutes or so, I was flying standby on every flight the next day and I had a voucher for a room at the national chain motel. I did not have my bags, but I was assured that there were various items in the motel store (only the next morning did I learn that there was a Minneapolis based chain store down the street from the hotel) so I had a clean t-shirt and clean socks as well as things to clean myself up with. It was 8 PM CST and I was hungry. I was supposed to be home with my family, enjoying Valentine's Day, and instead I was in a crappy chain hotel and miserable. I had forgotten that it was actually Valentine's Day though until I walked into the hotel bar and noticed that there was a Single's Dance going on.

Do you know how miserable it is to be someone at a Single's event, in a craptacular chain in a cold and lonely city on Valentine's Day?

I had my pizza, my beer, called MTW to wish her a Happy Valentine's Day and apologize for my behavior earlier and I wept before falling asleep.

(For those of you who care, I did not end up getting home until the 16th.)