I *had to* fly home on April Fool's Day. ...

Got to the airport and the huge monitor listing all the airline
counters/numbers were all reported as "Closed"... that included the
counter I needed to check in to, of course.  Got to the counter which
appeared to be open, and was very politely told, "Oh, the monitor is
broken; we're not closed! Come on in."  So I went up to the counter and
checked my bag.  Next?  Made it through security without incident, whew!  
Next?  Got a bite to eat while waiting to board (told to be to airport
at least 2 hours early so I was), and while still too early to board, I
went on to the gate to continue my waiting there.  Uh oh.  Looking at
the monitor at the gate:  Scrolling info:  San Diego ... departed, Los
Angeles... departed, Las Vegas ... departed.  *What???*  Las Vegas
departed????  No way!!!  So, I took advantage of another opportunity to
meet the counter agents and asked, "Did I miss my flight to Vegas?" ...
and, you guessed it, "No, don't pay any attention to the monitor; it's
broken."

So far, I'm beginning to wonder about my travel plans.  (Going to SF, my
"aircraft" on another airline as "broken" and after two hours of trying
to "fix the problem", we were ushered to another aircraft that wasn't
"broken" (yet).  

There I was, reminding myself of the email I received from the airline
advising their guests that the aircraft for our flight would not have
any of the anticipated onboard technology (TV, movie, maps, power plugs
in each seat for laptops etc) available for use on this flight and they
regretted to disappoint but also advised us to bring along our own
reading material ...) ... and at the time, I thought ... darn!!  
VirginAmerica sounded like it would be more "fun" with all the
techie-stuff.  Oh well, I thought. Doing *nothing at all* for an hour
and a half didn't sound all that bad! ;-)

Confidence, confidence ... our aircraft is late.  (What's new?)

Looking out the winder, I noticed one of their aircraft parked at the
next gate was named, "Jefferson Airplane".  Interesting... so, in my
relative boredom, I approached the friendly counter's staff and asked
about the name on the aircraft.  The young fellow's eye's lit up as
though someone turned the lights on ... and he began to tell me about
all the names of their aircraft that he could remember at the moment.  
After a fun little chat, I said, "Well, it will be interesting to see
what the name of ours will be!"  He agreed with a smile.

Waiting, waiting, waiting... the plane is later, later, later.  So I
thought I'd give a jingle to Mrs. A to see if she felt like jabbering
with me ... but, no answer.  It was about 8:45 PM her time and I
figured, she was smart and had her phone turned off for the day! ;-)

Soon enough, our Virgin Atlantic agent picked up the phone to update us
... he said, "folks, if you look out toward the horizon, you'll see your
plane on approach to our gate... look at the ridge of that building and
you'll see a little shark's red fin moving right along, ... you all know
the tune he hummed at that point... ;-)

Indeed, it was *our aircraft*!!! Everyone was ready to go!!!  We were
orderly and followed boarding instructions as to our Group letters.  I
gave the nice fellow my boarding pass and he said, "Guess what? You got
a plane without a name!"

Somewhere in there, I kept expecting an loud "April Fool!" ... But alas,
it was just another day.  

Home sweet home.  :-)

Webby (please forgive any typos; no time to proof read this time)

   http://tinyurl.com/yqp2x9

A one track mind is a terrible thing to have.