Waiting

4:00pm :- "Ladies and Gentlemen this is flight attendant with United Airlines UA 312 flying to denver. Due to some weather conditions, the flight we'll be flying hasn't arrived yet. There's an unexpected delay in departure." It's not a pretty message shouts your ear at the Newark international airport -EWR - (to me it was about Early Wait Rain)
2:00pm :-After finishing my work with the client I was happy to be done and finally heading towards Denver. A tough week sucking up the oxygen in my brain, relief was all I had on the way to the airport. The flight's scheduled to leave at 5pm and we reached the terminal at around 2:30pm. Surprisingly we faced no traffic on the turnpike and security check.
Luckily, I had "Open" an autobiography of Andre Agassi but it wasn't that enticing because only a few hundreds pages were left and i could kill an hr.
4:00pm :- Incidentally I heard the flight delay message and my book was done too. Lucky enough ehh??
5:00pm :- Scheduled departure to Denver but no signs of flight. I had an early morning at 5, 8hrs of laptop and projector staring and all I expected was to reach Denver soon. Not so soon is what the weather winks.
5:30pm :- "Ladies and Gentlemen this is your flight attendant with united airlines UA 312 flying to Denver. We just received a short message from the captain and the flight would be arriving soon. We'll be flying at 6:25pm. Thank you for your patience".
Now this message gives a sign that you still have to throw an hr gazing at the people around. I had already seen lots of desis in the shops, teens texting continuously, executives testing their speed at the keyboard and kept on typing, junkies shouting on the phone, some fat ones glutting the burgers and some blondes reading "how to stay in shape" from the living magazine. And then there were some like me who were killing time gazing, yawning and watching their wrist watches. None would have loved their wrist watch much as then.
6:15pm :- No signs of flight, no signs of boarding and no announcement from the flight attendant. A hero emerges and asks for the flight and he receives an amazing response.
"Ladies and Gentlemen this is your flight attendant, Sorry for the trouble. There was miscommunication, the flight would be arriving shortly and the scheduled departure is 6:52pm and not 6:25pm. Sit back and be patient. Thank you."
Another half an hr. I couldn't have spent unless I spotted person 4 seats away from me wearing a Movado. I love wrist watches and Movado is one of my favorites. I change my seats next to him and have a short talk about Movado. Interestingly the lady collects watches just like I do.
6:30pm :- "Ladies and Gentlemen the flight to Denver has arrived and we'll be boarding shortly."
7:10pm :- I'm on board on my seat and I stretch my short legs to make sure they've some room. I feel good to be on board after a short wait time of 4.5hrs but as they say -it's not over till it is.
7:20pm :- "Ladies and Gentlemen this is your captain speaking, we're currently taxing at position 15 and we'll be in air shortly." Freaking A - sounds another half an hour in the flight and just waiting to take off. It's getting ugly!! EWR is supposedly one of the busies airports and yes it is.
8:00pm :- "Ladies and Gentlemen this is your captain speaking, due to heavy rains some of the western traffic has been cancelled and flights are still hovering in the air. Once the air traffic clears we'll depart. It could take 5mins to number of hours" - ugly. It's got real ugly now.
First I reach EWR airport 2.5hrs Early, Wait for another 2 hrs and then Rain adds on to another 1.5hrs.
6hrs down and i finally see the seat belts fasten sign on. Gives me a sigh before i crash to sleep. A 4hrs of flight now seems to be a nightmare. I reach home at 11pm (NJ time 1am).
Try to sleep by 12 before I realize i'm flying to Dallas next day at 6am. I surely enjoyed the flight from EWR by disruptions of Early, Wait, Rain.