I still haven't quite made up my mind as to how to feel about missing the holidays with my family this year. I'd definitely had some trepidation about it, considering the differences in our political and religious views, but at the same time I'd already mentally prepared myself for the trip. If it had been my decision not to go to Tennessee, I think I'd feel a lot better about it than I do with what happened, since in this case it was American Airlines that made the decision for me.
Speaking of which, I'm still beyond bitter at how American Airlines handled the whole mess. Looking back at Saturday, they clearly knew that they didn't have enough pilots to cover all of the flights they had scheduled. They should have told us the first or second time the flight was delayed that there was a good chance it would be cancelled, rather than making us sit at the airport for over 10 hours. If they'd told us earlier, we could have gotten on other flights. By the time they even acknowledged cancellation was a possibility, though, it was too late. (Until pretty late in the afternoon, they were literally telling people: "No, the flight definitely won't be cancelled.") It was a small plane, so it only affected 30something people, and they clearly didn't think we were important enough to keep in the loop.
Plus, by the time they finally cancelled the flight, a lot of stores and such were closed. I'd purposefully not gotten a lot of groceries, since I was going to be out of town. Food-wise, I had frozen pizza in my freezer, so I was okay on that front. I really would have loved to have had some beer or wine (or whiskey, to be honest, after wasting 12+ hours and a ton of money once I paid for multiple airport meals and two longass Uber rides) for the holiday, though, but most of the local options were closed by the time I made it home from the airport.
But, yeah. It's been a weird few days. This is the first time in my life that I haven't spent Christmas Eve and Day with my family, and in a few days 2016 will officially be the first year that I haven't stepped foot in Tennessee even once.
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