How Long is Four hours?

First of all I am glad to be back from vacation but have been very busy and blogging has been down on the list of things to do. Thank you very much to my buddy Mt. Cat for picking up the slack in my absence. I will post about the rest of our family vacation later but I had to share this story.

Last Sunday we were scheduled to fly back from New York's JFK airport at 2:25 pm to arrive home before 5 pm after our wonderful vacation. We had decided that we needed to get to the airport early because not only is JFK very busy but my wife had lost her drivers license and we were concerned that she might have trouble at security. So got there plenty early. The security was not too bad and so we found ourselves able to relax for a bit and get a bit to eat and have an hour and a half before our flight was to board. Cool.

We had Patrick with us of course and we decided to let him stretch his legs and get some energy out so he ran around the terminal and tried to mess with peoples things. We chased after him and had some fun. It gets to be 2 pm and we find out that our flight is going to be delayed boarding due to another late flight coming in that they were holding a plane at our gate for. At this point we get a bit concerned because there is weather out to the west that will be arriving later and we don't want to get stuck. We are still OK though and Patrick seems to be alright.

We keep hearing delay after delay announcements for our flight which are not all that bad we finally get in line to board about 3:45 pm. Everything is still OK because they are telling us that we will still get out before the weather and get back home to Charlotte by 6 pm. No problem right? WRONG !

I checked my watch when we were seated on the airplane and it was exactly 4 pm. The crew goes through the normal pre-flight stuff and then the captain comes on the intercom and advises that we are in for a bit of delay because of the weather we are 65th in line to take off. Yes 65th in line to take off. At this point Patrick whose "seat" is either my wife's or my lap is starting to get a bit antsy. There simply is no room on an airplane for a 14 month old to do his thing and move around and he doesn't understand why he is being trapped there.

The time starts to drag on. We are going nowhere fast and the captain keeps coming on to tell us about the weather and they are hoping to take off soon. Oh and did I mention that the free satellite TV wasn't working even though they restarted it twice? Yep we were just stuck there. At one point they even turned the engines off and the exasperated captain tells us that we "aren't going anywhere any time soon."

Now I don't want to sound like I am blaming Jet Blue. It wasn't their fault and they did try to make us comfortable giving out water and chips but it was flat out miserable in there. People were agitated. Patrick was restless but you can't really blame him, he was hungry, had diaper rash and was cutting new teeth. The really nice lady who we shared a row with was a saint. She even took turns holding Patrick and one time even walked up and down the isles with him. I want to publicly thank Eleanor Grant who is a gospel singer and who we shared a row with. She has a new CD coming out and was on her way to Miami to do publicity photos. We might not have made it without her.

Well if you have managed to read this far you may figure out by the title of this post that we didn't take off until just after 8 pm. Yes we sat on the runway at JFK for FOUR HOURS. How long is four hours? Long enough for an average NASCAR race, or the movie Titanic (if you sit through the credits), an hour longer than the average NFL game, or half of an average work day. I submit that the longest four hours possible to be experienced is sitting on an airplane with a teething, hungry, and antsy 14 month old who just wants to run around. I never want to do that again! What is your idea of the longest possible 4 hours you could ever experience?

-Doc