Chicago . . . my kind of town.

Well, here I am sitting in Chi-town, listening to the plaintive calls for passenger Nikolia Schrumpuff, err, whatever his name is. He needs to get his foreigner keister down to Gate B17 for pre-boarding to Stuttgart. Meanwhile, I am stuck here at Gate B16 waiting for my flight to Munich which has been delayed. It sounds like such a minor inconvenience to describe it as "delayed". My whole day has been full of the dreaded d-word.
It's amazing how cheery flight attendants can be while serving the third round of free soft drinks to passengers stranded on the windswept Minneapolis tarmac. I retained my sanity by mentally devouring two newspapers and three magazines, including a mind-numbing Cosmo article on ten easy ways to please your man. Our scheduled 11:05 AM flight finally departed at around 3:00 PM after sitting on the runway for around two and half hours. My problems were compounded by an air traffic control order to hover in the air for an additional 45 minutes while the inevitable convoy of behind schedule aircraft took their turns touching down.
Surely LOT Polish Airlines flight #2, which is ALWAYS delayed, will give me time to spare. I should even be able to stuff my face full of American food one last time before leaving the land of the free. Well imagine my surprise to read the words "ON TIME" displayed on the flight info monitor. My usual dogged sprint to the train and through the international terminal were futile. The doors had shut about five minutes prior to my breathless arrival. Damn you for choosing today to be punctual, LOT Polish Airlines! I'm writing a letter to your CEO.
After some haggling with the powers that be, Agnieszka at the reservation desk, and with a little help from one of the fathers of one of my students, I was able to make it onto a later flight, but through Munich on Lufthansa. Apparently, diplomatic passports carry a little bit more clout than my ratty but well-traveled little blue booklet.
So here I sit. Waiting. I still have enough money to afford a couple dinners. Just got done noshing on a big Chili's burger while chatting up the second-tallest player in WNBA history, 6' 8" Lindsay Taylor who plays the off-season in Poland. And she doesn't just play in some scrub city. She plays in the thriving metropolis of Gorzów, home of the largest oil fields in Poland and only a short two hour bus ride to Berlin. Learn something new everyday.
Fortunately, I haven't quite reached the breaking point yet. Oh, wait a second. We just got delayed again. My flight that was supposed to take off at 8:55 has now been backed up to 10:45. Thank God for the internet. Maybe I should start collecting carts . . .