By: Catherine Cai

In the spirit of summer, my family decided to explore the wonderful state of Virginia. My dad had to go first for his business trip, but when he was done, he flew my mom and I in for a vacation. As people who have embarked on many flights, we knew what to expect. We had everything prepared on time. We packed our luggage two days before, remembered to take out our passports, and even put our boarding passes in our Apple Wallet.

On the day of our flight to New York, we arrived at the airport two hours in advance and started to go through TSA. Everything went smoothly and efficiently, and we arrived at our gate an hour before boarding. Satisfied with our unproblematic journey, we settled into our seats and prepared for takeoff. We hoped for a smooth flight, but our takeoff was the opposite. It never even happened.

It turns out that there was an issue with the plane’s air conditioning. We sat there, stewed in stale, stuffy air until the flight attendants gave us the order to disembark. My mom and I dutifully unloaded our carry-ons and returned to our terminal. The relief of the cool air was dampened by the pressing anxiety of missing our connecting flight. An hour passed, and still, there was no improvement in our situation. I passed the time doing the most reasonable thing, getting a snack. Another forty minutes passed, and my mom was starting to get worried. She did the math, and there was no way we could’ve made our flight to Virginia. She decided to ask the stewardess for a six-a.m. flight the next day. The attendant was very accommodating due to our stressful experience.

Unfortunately, my mom grossly miscalculated the amount of sleep we’d get that night. She forgot that we needed to go through TSA and frantically woke me up at four in the morning. We hustled to the car and sped off to our terminal. We’d already gotten our boarding passes, so we lugged our bags straight to the security check-in. As we descended the escalator, we were horrified. We realized how long the line was and the scope of how screwed we were set in. Unless the line was moving faster than Usain Bolt, we were going to miss another flight.

Fortunately for us, a generous worker was willing to help us out. After confirming our flight and our dire situation, she flashed her badge and helped us cut the line. Without her, we would’ve had to sit there, powerless to do anything. Our sleep deprivation would’ve all been for naught. But, thanks to her, we caught our flight in the nick of time and managed to make it to Virginia without any further delay.