Somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind, amid the vast pool of knowledge I accumulated at great cost to my parents, I learned about the elements of narrative conflict. And somehow they conveniently came together today to throw one huge monkey wrench into Christmas 2009. If you're not instantly recalling the elements of narrative conflict, you know how to use Google. Or you can simply read on and it will start to make sense.
For starters, I'm not going to lie. Traveling during the holidays is NOT my favorite thing to do. I always love going to visit my family, since I only manage to do it a couple of times a year. The PROCESS of doing it is another story. No matter how much patience you have, holiday travel will fry your nerves. You're surrounded by people that DON'T have your patience, DON'T know what they're doing most of the time, and DON'T have any respect for the other people they're irritating. I have a long standing theory that there should be roads built especially for long-haul trucks, since they don't mix well with cars. In my perfect universe, there would be separate airports for those people that meet all the DON'T criteria. When the world revolves around me one of these days, I'm gonna make it happen. Dealing with idiots during holiday travel is an example of the narrative conflict known as Man vs. Man.
I can see the light bulb going on over your head.
But lo and behold, before I even had a chance to confront the Man vs. Man beast, another type of conflict began yesterday at 6:51 am courtesy of an e-mail from my mother titled "FYI - SNOW." This would be an example of Man vs. Nature, just in case you were curious. As my luck would have it, the biggest snow storm in 25 years was predicted to hit Washington, DC the same day I planned to fly there on my way home. If I could get there, there were no guarantees I would be able to navigate the roads in my mid-size rental car.
As I watched the weather forecast deteriorate Friday evening, and endured a fitful night of sleep, I woke to yet another conflict - Man vs. Self. I started worrying about my ability to make the trip, what would happen if I got stuck, etc. I watched the sun rise on another temperate day in CA, and finished packing to leave for the airport. Just to be safe, I set text alerts with the airline in case the flight status changed.
So exactly how did all this dramatic conflict resolve? Mother Nature won. Washington got hammered with almost 2 feet of snow, the airport was closed, and my flight was canceled. I found out before I even had to leave for the airport thanks to the blessings of technology. So I called the airline, was EXTREMELY nice to the reservations person (knowing they must be having a bad day at work) and got re-booked on a flight....Wednesday. Four days from now.
At least the roads should be clear by then. But now I have a new conflict to deal with....Man vs. Christmas Gift List. You see, I had a great plan to do the rest of my shopping in sales tax -free Delaware. Time to unpack and get to work on Plan B....
No comments:
Post a Comment