Or maybe not.  So this morning, I sent my 17 year old son for his annual visit to his dad’s in Vermont.  He had 2 layovers, but since he was leaving out of Oklahoma City, it made sense.  Yea, ok. 

First, the plane sat at the gate after they boarded everyone.  I couldn’t find anyone at the terminal to ask, so I called United.  The plane had mechanical difficulties and was supposed to leave 45 minutes late.  Well, it left even later.   Ok, fine, so they’d have to make sure he made his connecting flight, but he’d be okay.

He texts me as I’m driving home, the plane had landed, but didn’t the gate was in use, so they just sat on the runway for another hour.  So that’s 4 hours or thereabouts he was in the plane.  When he finally got off, he didn’t get to his next flight within the 9 minutes he had.  So all United’s fault, right? 

The customer service line was long at the airport, so while he was waiting, he called his dad’s sister who works for a travel agency.  She rebooked him for another flight, and the ticket person kept saying tomorrow.  Only she had the dates mixed up and scheduled him to fly from O’Hare to Burlington, VT on the 23rd leaving at 8 pm.  My ex’s sister looked at the dates and was very upset.  Let’s not mention that you’re leaving a 17 year old in O’Hare for 2 days, but now you’re talking about him not getting there until sometime the morning of Christmas Eve. 

So, the earliest they could get him to Vermont was Christmas Eve, when it wasn’t our fault he didn’t make his frelling connection anyway.  I’m NOT a happy camper.

Instead, my ex’s sister booked him a flight through another airline (Jetblue) leaving tomorrow morning at 6 am.  Her husband has arranged for my son to stay at the USO club tonight.  None of us are very happy with United right now, so she is going to talk to them and get them to refund part of the plane fare we paid.  Since she works for a travel agency, she’s going to raise a fuss, or have one of her coworkers raise a fuss so we do get the refund.  That’ll go toward paying for the Jetblue flight. 

I’m still freaking because my son is in O’Hare without anyone around that knows him, but I know he’s safe and he’s 17, so he’s old enough to deal with this.  I even think that staying at the USO is going to be good for him since he has joined the marines.  They even gave him vouchers for food since I didn’t send enough money, expecting a total of 3 hours of layovers, not almost 24.  You can’t expect a teenage boy to go that long without food. 

So though I want to go into overprotective mommy mode, I’m trying to calm down and just let him be responsible for himself.