The term "to boomerang" is, as far as I know, unique to McMurdo Station, Antarctica aviation. It refers to a flight south from CHC (Cheech, or Christchurch, New Zealand) which is turned back in mid-route when the weather ahead makes it impossible to reach the Antarctic continent and land safely. Legend speaks of undoubtedly apocryphal episodes involving would-be ice visitors being backed up for weeks at a time in Christchurch as one flight after another fails to touch down in the face of the incessant southerly gales.
Today I boomeranged in a far less romantic fashion. After schlepping it from Brooklyn to Newark Airport for a ghastly non-stop flight to Beijing on the dreaded Continental Airlines I made my way to the international check-in desk expecting to see the entire Gen-Earth team lounging on the linoleum with our usual pyramid of luggage. Nobody to be seen anywhere. Thank God for mobile phones. I called Josh, our stellar production manager.
"Hey Rich, how's it going?"
"Good, man. Just wondering where you are. I'm at international check-in."
"You're a little early."
"I thought we said ten."
"Yeah, ten. On the eleventh."
"You're joking."
"We've always been leaving on the eleventh."
"Well, what day is today?"
"The tenth. As in Tuesday."
"Oh...
See you tomorrow, then."
But on the upside the rugs are already vacuumed, the fridge emptied of all perishables, the errands run, the bags packed. So I have a completely free day with absolutely no obligations. I wasn't in that much of a hurry to get to inner mongolia anyway.
2 comments:
What a pathetic cover-up for your depserate need to escape the Easter festivities at your parents' house...and just what leads you to think the senility is PREMATURE?
i must concur on the senility issue. while perhaps premature with respect to statistically-derived expectations, anyone familiar with your character and lifestyle would see it as overdue, if not ongoing.
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