Mulligan

We spent all day yesterday -- 6½ hours -- in the airport, only to get nowhere. Weather was bad in Chicago and we had a connecting flight there, but we couldn't get in or out. Another possible option for a connection was Dallas, but they also had terrible weather, what the airline guy described as "bricks of hail" damaging aircraft. Awesome! (Not.) Our flight to from O'Hare to California was cancelled pretty early so we switched to a different flight this morning (after much rigmarole that at one point included a route that would have taken us to St. Louis, then Denver, then Portland, then Santa Ana, all with zero checked bags and a four-year-old, eventually getting in at like 2 in the morning West Coast time which would have been ... interesting, to say the least), but we kept hoping to at least get to Chicago last night, where we would have surprised my nephew with an overnight stay and some beer and maybe some Chicago-style pizza, and then left this morning.

Instead, I spent the first night of our vacation sleeping in my parents' guest room in my father's pajamas. We start all over again soon, taking the same route that was originally planned, only a few hours earlier. Well, and 24 hours later. Yes, I cried at the poor lady from the airline, who was doing her best to get us to Orange County, even though it seems like God and everybody was having trouble getting anywhere west of the Mississippi yesterday, and yes, I kind of hyperventilated all the way back out of the airport and then lost my shit when I couldn't managed to successfully work the combination of cheap convenience store matches and cigarette with shaking hands, but ... eh. We're okay. Frustrated, but okay. We'll live. We'll take the mulligan and make the most of what is left.

I might have to reconsider my position that the worst day on vacation is better than the best day at the office, though. Possibly. But I don't think so.