Big Apple Update #1

It's 8:47 a.m. We are not in New York. I am at home on my laptop.

Why?

We missed our flight. UGH.

And I will be the first to admit if I thought it was negligence on our part, but it was a complete fluke. The flight was scheduled to leave at 6:15 and boarding at 5:45. We were at the gate ready to go at 5:20. The seats were kind of full so we sat across from our gate and waited. We saw the early flight to Chicago board and leave. We saw the flight to Detroit beside us board and leave. I listened to all the announcements. I wouldn't even let Spencer go back to the Starbucks for coffee. Finally the board posted our flight to NY. And we waited. And waited. And I even made the comment, "How can it be past 6:00 and they haven't even called our flight and it's still listed as 'on time'?" And then we noticed that the board posted a 7:00 flight to a new city. So Spencer went to find out what the delay was about for the NY flight. And the lady said, "The NY flight has already left." WHAT?!?
It turns out that they changed the boarding gate. They had to move to a non AA gate and could not post the flight info for a non AA gate on an AA board. So the lady just went around the seats verbally telling people to move to the alternate gate. Keep in mind, we were not in that exact area, but across at the neighbor seats (at the front, but still across) Later, she swears that she made an announcement over the PA, but I PROMISE you she did not. There is no way that myself and Spencer AND another man who was in the same situation all missed the announcement. And I was listening to every word, because around 5:50 I was already getting antsy that the pre-boarding had not begun.
So they put us on the next flight at 12:30. And we were lucky to get that. The airline was adamant that they followed all the correct procedures and that the fault was completely ours. The woman at the gate actually told Spencer, "You should have been paying better attention."
Perhaps so. Lesson learned. Always sit DIRECTLY beside the counter and start asking questions the minute that you are supposed to board and the flight has not been called.

In the end, we got a nice breakfast at Panera and a chance to come home for a bit instead of being stranded in the airport for 6 hours.

Let's hope that my next update comes from somewhere other than my kitchen.