I am a 30-year old clinical pharmacist with a hospital-based practice in Florida. Having achieved a national reputation for developing a disease-state computer modeling program, I now have a second career as a medical consultant showing other medical groups across the country how to achieve better medical outcomes through computer modeling. In this consulting role, I spend a fair amount of time in our nation's airports. Accordingly, I encounter the same problems with crowded flights, plane delays, and all the other problems that people who make a living traveling encounter. While I have my share of complaints about these problems, occasionally, something good results from one of the inconveniences. Let me tell you of one such experience.
Last November, I had spent a couple of days in the Chicago area and was anxious to get home. I had scheduled an early flight and would be home mid-afternoon on Friday and could get an early start on the weekend. Early Friday morning, a heavy snow had started to blanket the Midwest and eat coast. When I arrived at O'Hare Airport, I was informed that all flights were running about an hour behind due to the weather. I expressed my unhappiness over this revelation and joined other travelers waiting for the flight. An hour delay soon turned into several hours and the airport personnel kept us informed and offered us the usual offers for drinks and lunch tickets at the airport restaurants, etc.
While waiting, I met this very attractive couple, Mark and Jan, who were headed to Florida for a football game and Homecoming weekend. They were a couple my age who were high-school sweethearts and had married in their first year of college at the University of Florida and now owned an insurance agency in the Chicago area. Their children were at the age they felt comfortable to leave them with friends. and were going to their first homecoming event since graduation. They were a friendly couple and we had no trouble making conversation, as we waited together for our flight to Atlanta and on to Florida. We went to lunch together, courtesy Delta Airlines and shared several drinks together as we waited throughout the day. We laughed and had a great time waiting, considering the inconvenience of the plane delay. Finally, at 6:00 PM, we boarded the plane to Atlanta. When we arrived at the Atlanta airport, it was a zoo with weary travelers who had experienced similar delays with their flights. We were told that our flights would not depart for Florida due to the backlog of earlier delays and that Delta would pay for our hotel accommodations at a local Atlanta hotel. We were now scheduled to leave on the first flights out on Saturday morning. Surprisingly, we were not all that upset since we had had just a good time getting to know each other all day.