Prefatory Note: I will refer to a couple of “laws” in this story. As my mean-ass editor has a policy of not making people stupider for reading SJ, I’ll go ahead and say I have no idea if these are actual laws or just shit people made up. It could be both.—CLS

We make it to the gate in Manchester, Connecticut. My wife, Dr. S, looks at the gate monitor, then her phone. She shoots me a worried look.

“I hope we make the connection in Philly.”

I look at our tickets. Depending on where we end up, we could be looking at a very, very tight gate turnaround when we get to Philadelphia on our way home to Knoxville. And our first flight was delayed by about half an hour.

When a gate agent makes it to the desk and informs everyone it’s going to be as quick a boarding process as they can muster, we decide to check our carry on bags through to Knoxville. We also request preboarding and check our gates. According to the American agent, we’re going to come in at F17 and depart from gate F22. It shouldn’t take that long.

Famous last words.

The flight in Manchester doesn’t take off until twenty minutes after the delayed boarding, but no sweat says the flight crew. It’s just going to be a short hour long flight to our gate, where we’ll deplane and make our connection with minutes to spare.

After all, a flight attendant tells me as we prepare to disembark, we’re just going down five gates. Shouldn’t take that long.

When we hit the terminal, Dr S. looks at me with a sense of urgency like I’ve not seen from her in a long time.

RUN, she mouths. I take off.

I make it to the gate in Philly just as the doors to the jet bridge closed.

“We were on a delayed flight,” I exhale in disbelief. “They said on our plane they’d radio ahead and you’d wait.”

“I’m sorry,” shrugs the gate agent. “You’ll need to check with customer service.”

Customer Service was staffed by Willy Wonka’s younger bespectacled brother. I am told the flight at 8:30 is full and there’s no way to know if there’s another airline with a flight to Knoxville that night.

“Best I can do you is 7:30 AM Monday morning,” I’m told.

“We’re going to need a room for the night,” I say, shaking with clenched teeth. “I take it your fine airline will be comping us a room since you’re the reason we didn’t make the flight?”

Baby Wonka speaks up. “No room for free. It was weather for the delay.”

“But there was no adverse weather causing any delays. It was human error.”

“It’s weather everywhere causes delays,” Baby Wonka tells me. “Call American Customer Service if you’ve not been courteously treated.” With these words, Baby Wonka dismisses us.

“Can we get our bags tonight?” I ask a young woman in desperation.

“Oh sure!” She responds with a smile. “Your bags go with you so if you didn’t make your flight to Knoxville we can have our baggage crew hold them for you in the claim office!”

So we proceed, the four of us in my family, to baggage claim. At least we’ll have clean clothes and toiletries that night.

SURPRISE! That wasn’t in the cards as the baggage claim guy promptly informed us our bags made it to Knoxville while we weren’t so lucky.

With the clothes on our backs and the kids’ stuff crammed into their backpacks, we made our way to an airport Holiday Inn Express. I quickly decide I want a drink or three after the afternoon’s events and resolve to get one immediately.

This would prove a challenge as Pennsylvania apparently has a law forbidding the delivery of liquor via routes like Uber or Instacart. These options exhausted, I set off for a nearby gas station hoping for a six pack of at least Bud Light.

It was late on a Sunday night in Philly. I was desperate.

The gas station attendant tells me they don’t sell booze or brews in Philly gas stations. However, I’m pointed to a white sign two blocks away with a green awning.

“Liquor store there,” I am told by the smiling attendant.

He sent me to a fucking pho joint.

My last nerve fully trampled, I set back on a course to the hotel. Out of sheer dumb luck I ask a guy getting out of a truck where I can get a bottle of wine that night.

“Wine might be hard since it’s 9 pm and everything is closed down,” the silver haired Samaritan tells me. “But this is my bar’s parking lot and I came here for a drink, so they’ll sell you a six pack.”

Almost on cue a woman’s voice I would later identify as the bartender yells to us ,”No to go alcohol!”

“HIS BROTHER IN LAW JUST DIED, GODDAMMIT! SELL HIM A SIX PACK!” My newfound friend roars.

So I returned that evening two hours after I set out with the spoils of my conquest: two six packs of Yuengling. It’s not perfect but it’ll do.

And so my wife and I spent the night in the city where her brother died on the weekend of his funeral despite every attempt short of a nine hour car ride to get home.

We made it home Monday morning. Thankfully our bags were unmolested and our car was where we left it. When I finally got in my house the first thing I did was boil the Philly stink off me in the shower.

The second thing I did after getting into comfy clothes was double check Flight Radar to confirm what I looked up the night before: the plane that made us late to Philadelphia and caused us all of this fuss experienced zero adverse weather from the moment it first took off that morning.

American Airlines lied to us so they didn’t have to pay for our room.

They lied about our bags.

They lied about us having “enough time” to make our connection.

American Airlines, to sum it up, is chock full of rotten liars and thieves, and I’ll croak before I ever do business with them again.

And for all of the talk about how Tennessee is so “backwards” and “authoritarian,” I can still Uber Eats a bottle of wine to my door when I choose. Yankees in the alleged “city of brotherly love” apparently don’t get that option.

And speaking of Philly, if I never spend another night in that burg again in my life, it’ll be too soon.

So Philly, for the four people in you that are apparently not miserable bastards who want to revel in the suffering of others, y’all are good. We’ll catch up soon.

The rest of you can kiss my hairy white ass.

That’s all for this week! Happy Friday! Here’s to a better weekend, and remember: no matter how bad your week’s been at least you’re not a miserable sack of shit working for American Airlines!

And if you are, well, bless your hearts!

See you next week everyone! I’m going back to bed.