A Finger in Every Pie: Is It Any Wonder They're Going Bankrupt?

Never fly Delta. I spent eight hours of my life in the Delta terminal at JFK airport on Friday -- eight hours in order NOT to fly to San Antonio. Eight hours of my life I'm never getting back. So this post is not going to be food-related, not even peripherally -- except perhaps for the fact that the best restaurant that Terminal 3 has to offer is Burger King.

I had planned such a lovely post for you all. It was going to be a sweet, clever little essay about how the Rose of Spanish Harlem was temporarily transplanted into the Yellow Rose of Texas or some such hooey. And I still might get there, eventually, but for now I ask your kind forbearance as I use the best public forum available to me to express my displeasure.

Now, I know that the weather is not anyone's fault (other than big business' responsibility for having created global warming). At least Delta is not controlling the weather, as far as I know. But their handling of a situation in which the airport was fogged in and nothing was flying in or out for several hours was, shall we say, less than optimal. I arrived at the airport at about 8 a.m., in plenty of time for my 9:20 flight. As I sat in the waiting area of Gate 16, I noticed that it was getting nearer and nearer flight time, and the flight wasn't being announced. It was still listed at 9:20 on the monitor. Finally, I joined the line at the desk and asked the same question everyone else was asking. "The flight's been pushed back to 12:30 because of the fog," we were told. "The plane is coming from Ohio, and hasn't been permitted to leave the airport because nothing can land at JFK right now." Finally, at some point, they changed the monitor to a 12:30 departure time. But 12:00 loomed, and no flight was announced. I finally spoke to someone who was supposedly a Delta manager. "That flight's been pushed back to 1:30," he said. "The guy will announce it in a minute." As time moved forward and I tried to alleviate my mingled ennui and rage, it suddenly occurred to me that I had my computer. I ran up to a Delta employee who was putting on a sweater. "I'm leaving, I'm off duty," she snarled at me before I could say anything. Sometimes a good offense is the best defense, I guess. "I just wanted to find out if there's an Internet hub in this terminal," I said meekly. "Honey, this building was built in 1961, and it's never been updated," said she with a smirk.

1:30 came and went. Engrossed in alternating between my current fiction obssession (Chang Rae Lee's remarkable Native Speaker) and Mike Rose's wonderful The Mind at Work, I suddenly looked up and realized that there were fewer people sitting around Gate 16. There was, however, a long line by the desk. I asked another Delta employee who just happened to be passing by if there were any information about my flight. "Oh, that flight was cancelled," she told me, like a schoolmarm telling me facts I should have long ago mastered. "Go back to check-in, they'll help you out." "Where?" Check-in was back behind security -- why would I go there? Finally I just got on line with everyone else. I was offered a flight to Austin that was leaving in less than an hour. "Will Delta arrange my transportation from Austin to San Antonio?" "No ma'am. Cancellation due to weather. We're not responsible." But wait -- the Austin flight hasn't been cancelled, and it's the same weather for that plane as it is for mine. "Or you could take a series of flights that would get you in to San Antonio at midnight." No thanks. Since I would still have to travel at least 40 minutes by shuttle to my destination, that didn't seem like a good option. Finally I re-booked my flight for the following morning.

I called G, my knight in shining armor, and although he was out in Orient Point planning to work with his business partner and spend the night out in Long Island, he changed his plans and drove 2 1/2 hours in traffic to come get me and take me home so I could at least have a decent night's sleep before doing the airport dance all over again.

And it didn't matter that I had to wait so long for him, since they couldn't find the bags from the cancelled San Antonio flight for hours anyway. Good thing I didn't try to take the Austin flight or some other flights out of LaGuardia that I was offered. Everyone from our cancelled plane who booked those flights missed them anyway, because they couldn't collect and re-check their luggage. There was no joy at Delta that day.

They did finally get me here, 24 hours later. I'm now in Boerne, Texas, where I was invited to come to a posh resort and spend three days (two in my case, as it turned out) working on a piece of writing for publication -- not food writing, since I do that just for love. I'm writing a piece about teaching and standard English for an esoteric education journal that none of you will ever read except for my brother, since I'll proudly send him a copy. Sadly I don't have much food info to report, other than having eaten several mammoth pieces of Texas beef (including an absolutely melting hunk of prime rib last night at the Limestone Grill). Otherwise, the food here at the resort is neither the worst of its kind nor the best, but certainly encourages one to overeat with its brimming buffets and Texas-sized portions.

I chose an airline poised on the brink of bankruptcy not because I was hoping to get a good deal, but because it was literally the only direct flight offered from NYC to San Antonio. Let's just hope they get me home safely tomorrow -- 'cause after that, I hope never to fly Delta again. Even if they don't go into bankruptcy.