I’ll Be Home (For Christmas)

With a lot of people stuck in isolation this Christmas. The phrase “I’ll be home for Christmas” has a slightly sadder connotation. 

1: What are you doing this year for Christmas?

2: Well we’re visiting my partner's parents' place in Byron, then up to Brisbane for a couple of days…

COVID: You’ll be home for Christmas. 

Making it home for special events is really important to me. Family is a core tenant of a lot of parts of my life and so home represents a safe place filled with love and joy. I’m aware that I am privileged in that way to be able to enjoy home in such a way. 

This story isn’t really about trying to make it home for Christmas specifically, it’s really just trying to make it home at all. 

In 2016 my cousin in Canada got married and she asked me if I would MC her wedding. I’m always honoured to be asked to MC a wedding, and luckily I was able to make this one. 

So I booked a flight to Canada and back. You can’t get flights directly from Sydney to Toronto, so you usually have to fly through either LA or San Francisco. 

On the way to Toronto I was flying through LA and on the way home I was flying through San Francisco. 

The wedding was awesome, it was so filled with joy and good times. It was also so hot! You wouldn’t think Canadian summers are that hot, but can confirm they absolutely are. 

This story is really about my journey home from this joyous occasion. 

My uncle dropped me off at the Toronto airport a few hours before my flight. I remember feeling so incredibly relaxed because of the sheer amount of time I had. But when I got in the airport, it was absolutely packed. 

People were everywhere and the lines were incredibly long. I waited in line for 45 minutes to drop my bags off and get my ticket, only to realise when I got to the end that I was in the wrong line. This was the kind of move that would finally gain me entry into the Qantas Frequent Fuckhead Program. 

After checking my bags through to Sydney I ran through security to try and make my plane. 

You can’t seem too agitated when you're passing through airport security and you’re brown. I feel like I always need to be very cool and non-threatening.

I have to have the confidence of Tobey Maguire in Spiderman 3. 

So I was being very cool, while also being very stressed about missing my flight. After doing a dab and smoking weed with the security guard just let them know I was chill. I sprinted to my gate. 

Once I got there I realised my plane had been delayed two hours. 

I remember I had a burger at Whalburger, the burger chain owned by Mark Whalberg and his brothers. They’re bringing a few to Australia next year apparently - spoiler alert, sufficiently average. 

But while I was thinking about Mark Mark and the funky bunch I realised that my layover in San Francisco was actually pretty tight. Before the delay it was three hours in San Fran, now I’d only have an hour. 

But that shouldn’t be too bad, I checked my bags all the way through to Sydney. All I needed to do was just get to the gate. 

I was a little worried but I remained positive and enjoyed the rest of my burger that was better than Daddy’s Home but not as good as The Other Guys. 

Thankfully when we eventually did board the plane, we ended up leaving half an hour earlier than expected. So on the flight I was straight chillin.

In fact I was excited, I didn’t have to wait in the San Francisco airport for the equivalent of one screen of the Titanic. Now it was just one run through of Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. 

As we got closer to San Francisco the pilot told everyone there was going to be a delay because of the weather.

My butthole tightened. 

We’d been held up for another half hour. Instantly, my heart dropped. That gave me only an hour to make it off the plane and to my next flight. 

Using the on-board wifi I checked the status of my flight back to Sydney - it was still on time. 

I caught the eye of the flight attendant. I told her my predicament and asked if there was any way I could perhaps be let off the plane earlier, that way I wouldn't miss my plane because someone stuffed too much in the overhead compartment.

She said she’d see what she could do. 

Well, there was nothing else I could really do at this point so I kept watching my movie and waited till I got more news. 

The plane landed on the tarmac 15 minutes earlier than when the pilot said it would. So that gave me 45 minutes to make it to the gate - I was cheering. 

Plus the flight attendant said she’d let me off the plane first as well. There was no way I was missing the flight. 

I’d been praying this whole time and I was like look God, you did it. You answered my prayers, dunno what all these atheists keep complaining about. 

As we are rolling around the airport, the captain’s speaker comes back on. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, while we have arrived a few minutes earlier than expected we are waiting for a place to dock safely. The weather has grounded all the planes and so there is nowhere for us to stop, we’ll be rolling around until something becomes available.”

Was I on a plane or an emotional rollercoaster? 

My plane was scheduled to depart in 45 minutes and we rolled around on the tarmac IN San Francisco for 45 minutes before we found a spot to land. 

It was the most excruciating 45 minutes of my life and I watched a few episodes of the American version of the Inbetweeners. 

For all I know our flight was waiting for my flight to leave so they could take their spot. 

I was screwed. I didn’t want to spend any more time in San Francisco. I wanted to get home. I had work and uni, I didn’t have time to spend another day in the Bay Area. 

By the time we docked I was pretty discouraged. I was pretty sure that I wasn’t going to make this flight. 

But true to her word the flight attendant let me out first and wished me luck. 

I ran through the tunnel and up to the gate, my legs wobbly after spending five hours sitting. As I walked out of the gate, I literally bumped into a friend from Canada who I had done an exchange with just a year earlier. 

He was clearly in the mood to catch up, but I told him I was running for a plane back to Australia. He let me go and I ran through the airport - Home Alone style. 

I empathise with people running through airports, but I also find it extremely hilarious. They’ve got all their bags and they look so uncomfortable. I imagined that’s what I looked like as I rushed through the San Francisco airport. 

I found my gate, luckily it wasn’t too far away from my first flight. 

As I got there I realised that it was completely empty, there was not a single person left. Even the people at the gate had gone. 

I’d missed it, and seemingly I’d missed it by a long while. 

I was gutted. Now I’d have to find another flight and try somehow to make it home. 

Frustrated I looked out the window of the terminal, you know just to stare at this prison I was trapped in. Insert joke about Alcatraz here. 

And as I stared out, I realised that the plane was still attached to the gate. There was a plane docked. I didn’t know if it was mine or just perhaps the next plane, but I could see there was a pilot sitting in the cockpit. 

In a weird movie-like moment. The pilot seemingly looked up from what he was doing, he looked me right in the eyes. 

My eyes widened and I immediately started waving. I started pointing to the gate.

He too pointed to the gate, gave me a thumbs up and disappeared back into the plane. 

A few moments later, a stewardess appeared from the door. I’ve never been so excited to hear an Australian accent. She said, are you on this flight? 

I said yeah I am. I need to be on it. 

She said they were just about to leave and my bags weren’t going to be on the flight - they’d still be stuck on my previous flight. 

I asked her when the next flight to Sydney was, and she said it wasn’t for another 24 hours. 

I told her I couldn’t wait that long, I needed to get back ASAP. 

She said okay and let me on the plane. 

Anyway, that's the story of the time I hailed a plane down.