I had a great time with my brother, sister and spouses in Michigan this past weekend, but my advice is, if you ever make an airplane reservation at any time in the future, make sure I’m not going to be on the same flight. I won’t name the airline (not SW), but I ran into all kinds of trouble.

   Going to Michigan, I had a 35 minute layover in Detroit, which is a lot tighter than I’d prefer, but I’ve done it before with no difficulty. Problem was, there was no wheelchair waiting for me, as I’d requested. Well, there were wheelchairs, but no one to push them. Another fellow and I were abandoned at the first gate for ten minutes before I decided I’d better hoof it. And hoof it I did. Down a two story escalator, through a 100 yard underground tunnel (with moving walkway), then up an escalator the same height as the first. My next gate was three down from there, and I made it with five minutes to spare, huffing and puffing the whole way.

   Coming home Sunday night, I had a three hour layover time. No problem, I thought. Came the first gate, after a 2½ wait for a radio to be fixed, the flight was cancelled. Called my sister, she came to get me. They gave me a new flight for Tuesday. A 30 minute layover time, but the gates were in the same concourse, so that wasn’t a problem. We boarded and waited for takeoff, but not so fast. The A/C wasn’t working and they couldn’t fix it. We all trooped off and went over to wait while they got the airplane next door ready to fly. Made it home 2½ hours later than scheduled.

   The good news was that in both of these last two instances, both those of mechanical problems, all of the passengers took them relatively calmly and lined up when asked, with no pushing and shoving and with no fistfights breaking out. Everyone was orderly, and the staff was continually apologetic.

   But I’m obviously a jinx, so as I said up above, don’t book yourself on the same flight if you know I’m going be on it. Luckily for you, I don’t plan on flying anywhere again this year. There’s something to be said about having too much fun.