Stranded (in Halifax)

… and no way to make deadline

   I should have been back at my desk by 1000h Monday morning to hammer out my already researched article and email it to my editor by noon. Instead, I was stranded in the Halifax International Airport with an 11-hour wait for the next available plane to Montreal, with no laptop, no cell phone (I don’t own one) and no possible way to write that article.

   I had flown out of Montreal the previous Thursday morning – destination St. John’s and a late-February hiking trip. I was not carrying my mobile office or copies of work in progress. After all, it was just a weekend getaway. What could possibly go wrong?

   Well … on the day of my return home, my friend and I found ourselves battling freezing rain and wet snow on unplowed roads as we raced at 30 kilometres an hour to catch my 0600h flight out of the St. John’s International Airport. I caught my plane, which blocked out late, spent 30-minutes getting de-iced and finally took off at 0650h – destination Halifax. Minutes later, I learned later, the St. John’s airport shut down.

   I made my connection in Halifax and settled back in seat 18A. After a rather long delay, however, during which I amused myself taking photos of snowplows through the window, the pilot announced, “We are experiencing electrical problems and Air Canada mechanics are working on it.” A few minutes later he came on the horn again: “The mechanics have determined that they cannot fix the problem. This flight is cancelled.”

   We trudged off the plane.

   I booked the next available flight, which was for that evening. Then I set out to contact my editor. I appealed to a gentleman in a Nova Scotia tartan vest at the information booth to get me onto a computer (there are no computers in the airport for public use) and he took me down to the coffee room where airport volunteers catch their breath. I logged onto a Hotmail account where I store a list of email addresses for all my editors. Knowing that the magazine wouldn’t go into production until at least Wednesday, there was no panic; rather, I just needed to give my editor a head’s up that my article would arrive a day late and that he could safely leave a hole into which to drop my piece.

   I strolled back through security, found my departure lounge, commandeered a big wooden rocking chair by a window near the gate and settled in for a very long wait with a fat book I’d stashed in my bag before leaving home.

   Usually, when I go on a trip I pack my laptop, electronic copies of the articles and images I have recently submitted, articles I am working on and any physical files I might need to refer to. At least once on every trip I take, an editor has a question about an article I have submitted in the days before leaving, or a plea to resend images he has managed to misplace (this happens more often than you’d think). I am always ready, well, until this latest getaway, to play mop up.

   This time I was snared by a mechanical problem, with a side order of storm. Even getting home that evening was dicey: My plane was 45 minutes late getting into Halifax and took another hour to struggle out as the country’s aviation system got buried deeper and deeper under a miserable weather system that blanketed eastern Canada.

   I staggered in the front door of my house at 2225h, vowing to never travel again without my mobile office.
Copyright © Carroll McCormick 2012
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