2:54AM

This weekend, I joined my college friends for our biennial reunion. Twelve of us decided to reconnect 10 years ago to celebrate our 30th birthdays. Since that first reunion on Kiawah Island, SC, we've gotten together every other summer, with each member taking a turn finding a location and organizing the event. This time, we went to a cabin outside of Minneapolis and had a fine time.

We had a great time catching up, and as often happens, as we prepared to leave, we found ourselves sharing stories of past travel nightmares. I've had relatively smooth flights since the beginning of this year and had a sneaking suspicion that I was tempting fate by reliving past problems. Still, I shared my 24-hour trip from Little Rock to Syracuse story. "It will be fine," I told myself.

I was further reassured when my flight left Minneapolis about 5 minutes late (3:50 central time), on track for a 7:35 arrival in Atlanta. About an hour into the flight, the pilot comes on and to say that we're taking an alternate route to Atlanta because there's a storm system over Tennessee. Even though this route would add 20 minutes to the flight, he assured us that we'd still be on time. We were puzzled, but looked forward to our trip through a gaping hole in the time-space continuum.

About 20 minutes later, the pilot was back. Never a good sign when you hear from the pilot multiple times during a flight. He told us that we were in a holding pattern because the thunderstorms had moved into Atlanta. The hole in the space-time continuum would not be able to solve this problem, so we'd be delayed getting to Atlanta. Bad news for those catching connecting flights, but Atlanta was still our destination.

The hammer fell at about 7PM. Atlanta told our pilot to circle for another hour, he told them we didn't have enough fuel, and they said, "Get thee to Charlotte, NC." True to his word, the pilot delivered us on time ... in Charlotte - where we couldn't get off the plane because Delta's 2 gates were already occupied.

Charlotte, NC - a 3-hour car trip to my house. It was still daylight out. "I could drive, if they'd just let me off the damn plane," I thought in frustration. My frustration was nothing compared to the folks who were headed to Atlanta to catch connections to places within 2 hours of Charlotte. I would have been homocidal had I been traveling from Minneapolis to Atlanta, to connect on to Charlotte.

One hour slowly became two hours. Delta's only fuel truck was finally headed our way (after filling up all the gate-hogs) when, you guessed it, the thunderstorms rolled into Charlotte. In the pilot's words, "You can imagine that we can't refuel in a thunderstorm." I'm sure more than one of us thought, "Put the fueler in rubber boots and get him out here!" The fuel truck returned to the terminal. We sat. We took turns standing in the aisle to stretch our legs. The flight attendants offered cookies, peanuts, and cheese crackers. They offered beverages. We limited our fluids, knowing that the bathroom situation could quickly turn ugly.

Two hours became three hours. The pilot assured us that they "had been in touch with Delta and they are aware of our situation." Well, that was good news. Someone somewhere knew that there was a plane full of people just sitting on the tarmack at the Charlotte Airport. They knew, but they didn't care enough to send food or find a way for us to get into the terminal. This shameful inhumane course of action renewed my belief that corporations are the source of all evil, right behind beans and peppers. The fact that everyone maintained their composure and forgave the remarkably short bursts of disgruntlement from the few small children on the plane renewed my faith in humanity. I passed the time with my new best friends, a polite male college student and a young mother who just wanted to get home to her baby.

The lightening finally moved on and the fuel truck returned to finish its work at 10:30PM. The pilot informed us that we were all set to take off for Atlanta by 11PM, should be in Atlanta by midnight. That was before we taxied out and took our place in line -14th in line for take off. Our projected arrival time quickly became our projected departure time.

At 11:50PM, we were in the air. Everyone was too exhausted to cheer. We touched down in Atlanta at 12:25AM, taxied in, and sat in full view of 4 empty gates for 30 minutes while we waited for one magic gate to open up. That was when the mood on the plane finally turned.

When I deplaned at 1AM, 8 hours after boarding, I praised the God of Direct Flights - because the Atlanta airport was full of really, really, really miserable people. I got to my car at 1:20, and walked through my door at 2:54AM. If they'd allowed me off the plane when we landed in Charlotte, I would have been home by 10:30PM.

I still haven't worked up the energy to see if I can get any compensation from Delta. I'm sure they won't offer any since this was all "weather related." Yes, there was bad weather and no, I don't want to be in a plane while lightening flashes all around. But no, forcing us to sit on a plane for 5 hours without a decent supply of food, water, and bathroom facilities was not weather related. Not allowing us in the terminal was not weather related. That's just mean.