Why doesn't it surprise me that our trip to Tacoma has been put off for a couple of weeks?
Little things just keep coming up. Fortunately, when you fly standby, it's easy to change your plans. I've always gotten some kind of stupid thrill out flying standby. I have no fond memories of being stranded in Kansas City for 26 hours, simply because all of the flights were full. There was no joy in Miami as I waved bye-bye to seven straight flights that would have taken me home. And the Las Vegas basketall team--Don't ask!

The truth is that the uncertainty is part of the adventure. I still laugh about the time my wife got stuck in an Atlanta snowstorm and had to fly to New Orleans, Memphis and then home. It took all night and half of the next day. Guess who was waiting at the Knoxville airport all that time.

There's another side to that coin. Sometimes the available seat is in first class.

Oh, what the heck, I'll tell you about the Las Vegas basketball team. We were having a good trip back from California. We decided to stop for a couple of days in Vegas. An when we started home, the flights were "loose" which, in airline, means some empty seats that are available for standbys. Minutes before we were to board, a group of very large young guys hurried into the gate area. Very, VERY, large. It seems that the UNLV team had been the victim of a cancled flight and they were shuffled over to our flight. There were only two seats left. They were not together. In fact they were center seats in a single-aisle, six-across aircraft. You guessed it, I got stuck between two of the biggest guys on the plane. The one on my left was tall like a basketball player, but wide enough for football, and he was sleepy. I spent the entire flight worrying about when he was going to fall over and crush me! How's that for adventure?
How"did I ramble"ard