Your Seats Are Confirmed ...

... however, apparently our flight is not.

It is 11:00 PM CDT and we are at O'Hare in Chicago. In fact, we've been at O'Hare in Chicago since 2:05 this afternoon - fully 25 minutes ahead of schedule. Amazing, eh? Yes! Fantastic! And we'd got our boarding passess at OKC, so we were feeling quite savvy in just hopping into the queue for the security point.

And then we got to the scary bit.

Oh, we had all the liquid and gelatinous substances in the proper and prescribed 3-1-1 format. We all took our shoes off, and each of us was holding our own boarding pass in our own passport, and I had the laptop halfway out of the wicked cool new rolling laptop carryon thingie I'd got at Circuit City, ready to stick it in its very own Dull Gray Security Tub for scanning. No, the scary bit started when we'd stood in the freaking line for 45 minutes, only to be told that our flight was "very, very late" and that we had to go back to the BMI ticket counter for a chat. Ever the intrepid travellers, we went.

Well, yeah. Apparently there's a mechanical failure on the plane that was supposed to leave Manchester at 11:05 this morning and get here at 1:05 this afternoon and then sit and wait for us to get on it and leave at 6:30 this evening and get to Manchester at 8:05 tomorrow morning and then sit and wait for kids to get on it and leave at 11:05 - but I think you get the point, yes? No, no, the scary bit is that WE ARE WAITING SEVEN AND A HALF HOURS TO GET ON A PLANE THAT HAD "MECHANICAL PROBLEMS" AND THEN FLY FIVE THOUSAND MILES ON THE STUPID THING.

Oh, but BMI coughed up $10 per traveller in food-court vouchers, so that's okay, isn't it? Hector, the guy at the ticket counter, told us they were good at the bar, too.

They aren't.

>sigh<