Adventures in Non-Revenue Travel

Most of you readers know that my darling Daddy is a pilot. Sometimes this is a great thing. Especially when we want to travel, because when he wears his uniform, we get to cut the security line. And TSA is nicer to us. Let me tell you, it brings me great joy to skip the security line. It is also great because it means we can fly for free. Free is a beautiful thing. However, there really is no such thing as a free lunch, because free flights mean standby. When the whole family flies standby, we need 3 seats, because Dad can fly in the jumpseat. You'd be surprised how difficult it is to get three seats sometimes.

This weekend, I'm planning to go to New City to find myself a place to live. My family, being my loving, over-protective, over-involved, opinated family has all decided that they would like to come with me to help me make that decision. We were supposed to take a redeye tonight, and three days ago, there were plenty of seats. This redeye wasn't exactly ideal (sleeping on a plane and then apartment hunting didn't sound like a blast, but it would work. And give me plenty of time to go to my Cylinder girls' gradations. Unfortunately, it's a holiday weekend. Things change quickly on a holiday weekend. 10 minutes before the ceremony was supposed to start, Brother called and said I needed to leave, because the flight we were supposed to take at 10 PM was now obscenely overbooked and we needed to leave immediately. I asked some friends to apologize and explain to my girls and raced out of the stadium (where I was stopped by no less than 3 security guards for trying to go out the "wrong" part of the stadium). We got to the airport and only Dad and I could get on the flight to stop number one. Mom and Brother are stranded at home. We have been trying to do internet backflips to get them registered on any and all flights that will get them to our desired destination so that we can find me a place to live. It's not going well. And Dad and I have 4 hours to kill in his least favorite and my second-least favorite airport in the country. Mom and Brother are most likely going to be on a flight that leaves at 1:30 in the morning. I'm glad that my family has such a good sense of humor. We have to laugh, becasue if we don't we'll cry.