Look up in the sky!

It would seem that we chose a rather unfortunate time to visit Buffalo. Or perhaps, more specifically – we chose a rather unfortunate time to fly through Chicago. My parents had just as much of a struggle getting home yesterday as Rick and I had the day before. Their flight from Buffalo was unable to land in Chicago due to storms, and after circling for an hour, they were forced to land in Fort Wayne, Indiana to refuel. While on the ground in Fort Wayne, a thunderstorm rolled through that delayed their departure to Chicago. And when they finally did make it to O’Hare that afternoon, they discovered that every flight to Austin was full until 9 p.m. And, in keeping with the “everything must be delayed” theme, the flight did not depart until 10 p.m. Since I wasn’t actually there, I can’t provide the detailed description I wrote of my own journey yesterday. But that may be a good thing, since Rick proclaimed my recap was “eerie” – apparently my memory is much too precise, and I remember things that normal people don’t give a second thought to. Hey, that doesn’t make me eerie… it makes everyone else, um, mentally deficient. Yeah. At least that’s what I’ve decided to tell myself…

So what are people to do when they find themselves wrapped up in an inconvenient conundrum such as a major flight delay? What can you do when you’re caught in a thunderstorm? What can you do if your plane breaks down on the runway and blocks the hundred other planes waiting to take off behind you? What we need is some sort of improbable solution to all our problems. What we need, obviously, is a hero. No, wait – not just a plain old “hero,” because mortal heroes can only do so much. What we really need is a SUPERhero.

The problem with superheroes is that they’re so concerned with their identities. They try to hide their true selves behind glasses or suits when they’re taking a break from fighting life’s injustices, knowing that when a crisis arises, the glasses must come off, the tights must go on, and the crisis must be averted. (Why they need to wear tights to avert a crisis, I don’t know… freedom of movement, I guess…) Anonymity is key. Any random person we see on the streets could be a superhero, and we wouldn’t even know it. Because, I am certain, superheroes have an active system in place to preserve their identities. Even now, as I type, superheroes of the world are actively and adamantly advocating anonymity.

But all this anonymity, of course, means that those of us who are mere humans must endure the modest difficulties we encounter, never knowing who to summon when our plane is trapped on a runway and we wish we could fly away. Superman? He can certainly fly… Wonder Woman? She has her own plane… Captain Anonymous? (What? You’ve never heard of Captain Anonymous? Must be all the anonymity…) Captain Anonymous is the superhero who should’ve reminded me that I had my iPod when I was stuck on my grounded plane. But I think he was falling down on the job that day…

I suppose most superheroes can’t be bothered with things like flight delays and thunderstorms. Not when they have true villains to conquer and mortal danger to overcome. So it looks like, for the foreseeable future, us mere humans will simply have to take everything in stride. A flight delay is, after all, simply that – a delayed flight. A minor hassle in the midst of a life unavoidably filled with ups and downs.

But I still wish I’d remembered my iPod…





Waiting for a superhero... but I've got my iPod, so it's okay if I have to wait a while...