Playing A Cartoon Fish

Excuse me. Excuse me. Just trying to get home.
– Marlin “Finding Nemo”

I went to Chattanooga today. I didn’t intend to. In fact, I fell asleep and woke up in Chattanooga.

Atlanta was closed.

Not the city. Just the airport.

My flight home from Shreveport diverted to Chattanooga to wait out the thunderstorms sitting over the Atlanta airport. Chattanooga’s airport was surpringly crowded for a regional airport. Probably because we weren’t the only diversion.

If you were on the flight from Tulsa to Atlanta you must get on the airplane at gate 4 now. You are in danger of missing your flight.

People were concerned about leaving their bags on the plane. The flight attendant tried to be helpful,

You can leave them hear while you stretch your legs in the terminal. Don’t worry. We aren’t going anywhere. . .YET. I mean, we aren’t going anywhere yet!

As it always does, the weather eventually cleared up and we all got back on our flight to Atlanta. Goodbye Tennessee, hello Georgia.

Atlanta’s airport is one of the busiest in the world. Millions of people go through their every day. If you close it, there’s going to be a buildup. Like kinking a waterhose, the pressure will build up behind it. Chattanooga is only about 45 minutes from Atlanta. We were one of the first flights in.

It was structured chaos. The terminal was literally wall to wall people. We had to thread our way through the crowds standing 20 people deep at the gates. And that’s when I had a flashback to watching Finding Nemo.

I’d been travelling all day. I was tired and as I inadvertantly bumped into people next to me, I just thought,

Sorry. Excuse me, just trying to get home

Eventually I made it to my gate. The flight to Salt Lake City was delayed. . .and then delayed again. We finally boarded around 8:00 for a 4:51 flight. Then, we sat in an airplane traffic jam for another hour.

We landed at Salt Lake around 10:30. As I shuffled off the plane with the rest of the clown fish headed home, I was met by a wall of humanity. Atlanta’s weather trouble had backedup the entire system.

I got my bag. Caught a shuttle to my car and headed home. . .through the construction at point-of-the-mountain. Six miles of bumper-to-bumper stop and go traffic.

Sorry. Excuse me. Just trying to get home.

It’s good to be home safe. How was the trip?

Successful.

Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.

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