Auto Pilot

Monday night, my flight was cancelled because of the Nor'easter. chinese food and extra snuggling? nice. flight re-scheduled to 6:20 a.m.? not nice.

4 a.m., out in the brooklyn snow to a waiting cab. when I get to the airport, the snow is still coming down fast and furious. there's no way I'm flying. at the terminal, almost every other flight is cancelled except mine. there's no way I'm flying. 6 a.m., CNN is saying "Brooklyn and Queens are getting the most intense precipitation of the storm right now!" there's no way I'm flying. me and my fellow passengers are led onto the plane like lambs to the slaughter. looking out the window, the entire runway and the wings are covered in inches of snow. there's no way I'm flying.

then I fall asleep. next thing I know, I look out the window and we're flying high above the clouds. my theories:
a)the prayers of the albanian (I assume) woman next to me guided us safely through the storm
b)the pilot used to fly choppers in Vietnam –
Air traffic control: For Chrissakes Bill, you can't take off – those are civilians in there!
'Gunner' Bill: I swore an oath to be in Minneapolis by 9:30, and I'll be goddamned if some little pencil pusher in an ivory tower is gonna tell me how to fly this bird!