I always thought "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" was a fantasy… Now I’m not so sure.

I woke up to an e-mail telling me a major storm was blowing in, and to GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!

So I called Air Canada. And sat on hold for fifteen minutes. Until I got someone who told me I couldn’t get out today, no way, and agreed that tomorrow was a disaster and told me she could get me the one seat left on the 12:55 flight on Sunday. You make an instant decision. You take it.

And she’s getting my cell number, all this information. And you know how they’re in mental soliloquy, and you’re holding on the other end? Well, I’m checking the sites and I just can’t find the 12:55 flight she’s talking about. But maybe they added another, in light of the looming weather disaster. Then she can’t spell my e-mail address so I give her an easier one on AOL and the message comes through and I’m booked to LAS VEGAS! Sunshine-y city that that is, it’s not my home of Los Angeles.

She seems surprised. Since we’ve been on the phone for fifteen minutes. And asks me if I can leave today. Which I told her originally I wanted to do. But she wanted to route me through Montreal, which even she said was stupid, considering the weather…

So, now knowing I’m L.A. bound, she asks me if I can leave at noon, I can fly through Calgary. I say YES! But as I’m adding up how long it’s going to take me to pack, whether I can manage a shower, she tells me she’s going to TRANSFER ME!

I’m on a wired phone. I can’t pack and hold. I can’t even shit and hold, which I need to do desperately. And then it occurs to me. She’s transferred me to the DOMESTIC department. Since Calgary is in Canada and… The minutes are floating by, there’s no way I can fucking make it, and meanwhile the computer has lost the fact that L.A. is my original destination!

Stunningly, ten minutes later the original woman comes back on the line. And says the call won’t go through. And I implore her, DON’T HANG UP, DON’T LET ME GO! Thank god, she didn’t.

Can I go to L.A. on Sunday at noon? THAT’S THE FLIGHT I WANTED! But there’s not a single seat. Then, she can’t book it at all, because you can’t do two switcheroos in that short a time period. She’s gonna have to get someone on the phone.

I’m peaking and freaking, the storm of the winter is blowing in, the computer says I’m going to Las Vegas, I don’ have a hotel reservation and then…she says she fixed it. I tell her I’m going to wait for the e-mail. Which I just got. Which I’m staring at, and I’m not sure I believe.

So it’s another evening in the Great White North. With blizzard conditions. And all I brought were my Nikes. I usually bring my hiking boots, but I was trying to have a breakthrough and travel light. Ah, it bites you in the ass.