Jessica wakes up early and gets us moving. She wants breakfast. Too tired and mentally exhausted, Jessica and Brian reconstruct the past few hours from text message conversations with their friends and family. It goes something like this:
Jessica and Brian are stuck in Michigan. After our plane arrived in the Detroit airport, Jessica bargained for flights (through Philadelphia) to Scranton on December 27 and a night in a Best Western in Detroit. The shuttle passes us by twice, and Jessica, Brian, and several new friends decide to hail a taxi.
At the hotel, we learn the hotel is full. The only remaining rooms all have problems. The manager decides to bus us across the street for the night. Jessica and Brian check in (at 1:55 a.m.) and go straight to the bar to beat last call. Two drinks later, they grab their bags, coats, and phones and head toward their room.
Jessica and Brian get to the lobby restaurant, but are greeted by a hotel employee offering them a ride to the airport. Jessica (remembering the problems leaving the airport the night before) jumps at the chance. Ten minutes later, we’re being screened at DTW nearly three hours before flight 1776 is scheduled to depart for Philadelphia. (He updates the blog using his phone to pass the time.)
Standing at the line for Starbucks, Jessica examines her boarding pass. She’s in seat 4A – first class! Brian’s shocked, then learns he is in 1A. More than two hours later, he boards the plane, hands over his coat, and graciously accepts a small juice while other passengers trudge past him. Jessica scrambles to the front of the boarding line. The airline employee gives her a nasty look, and Jessica responds with “you just let my husband in.” Jessica boards, takes her juice, and immediately falls asleep as the remainder of the passengers stare enviously at her.
During the flight, Brian learns the dirty little airline secret. Nobody seated in first class paid for the special treatment. Everyone was bumped up as a payoff for delays, cancellations, etc. Whatever. Jessica and Brian weren’t upgraded on their honeymoon. They deserve it this year. They’ll gladly take it as a belated Christmas present.
The rest of the trip is as uneventful and expected as you’d expect by this point. We switch airlines, get new boarding passes, must pass security (again) in Philadelphia. We arrive in Scranton, but there’s no luggage. The next morning, Brian’s suitcase shows up – but there’s no suitcase for Jessica. She and Brian finally pick it up from the baggage guy in a CVS parking lot on their way to her parents to celebrate faux Christmas on the 28th.
“We’ll drive,” Jessica tells her family, “the next time we go somewhere.”
