Adventures: Day 1

Sept. 2nd
All packed and ready to go with my enormous suitcase of doom (you could pack me in there, for goodness sakes), Josh, Andy, and I are chauffeured to BNA by Josh's lovely wife, Jill. She's kind of awesome. She works with mosquitoes and you can't help but dig a chick that smashes up mosquitoes for the DNA of the critters they bite. Having made it through security with my knitting needles (and TSA guidelines in hand, just in case there was an issue - there wasn't), I waited patiently for the plane.
We got on said plane and began to take off when there was a disconcerting kthunk sound. The passengers looked around at each other as though to say, "Is that normal? Should we be concerned?" Turns out that it was not normal and we should have been concerned. One of the cargo doors malfunctioned, so the plane returned to the airport and we had to catch another flight. This was problematic. By the time we'd have gotten to the next airport, we would miss flight #2 and each flight following. On the way back to the airport, I spoke with a Danish pastry chef who was going home after a convention in Nashville. No, danishes were not his specialty, he was from Denmark and made awesome sculptures with chocolate. He was terribly worried that he wouldn't be able to get home. I do hope he got home okay. Fortunately for us, we had Mr. Mullett as our customer service dude. He'd helped us check in before and recognized the three of us. When he got to the counter, I think he must have called almost everyone in the whole airport and at one point had a phone on each ear. It was nothing short of amazing. Not only did he get us a new series of flights, but he got us a really nice flight from Miami to Lima on an airline called LAN. We each had our own personal video screen and could watch one of many movies. There was a little pillow and blanket, real food, and even tiny glasses of wine for no extra charge. Other than the fact that I can't sleep in a moving vehicle, this was a very very pleasant flight. Thank you, Mr. Mullett. You are my customer service hero.