You know how some people are unflappable? I'm not one of them. I'm very flappable. I'm flapping all over the place thanks to incidents that occurred during my sexy hot trip to Southern California, which turned out to be a one-day jaunt to the teeming and ever-busy Chicago O'Hare airport and back again to Cleveland, which I was trying to get out of for a fun, relaxing trip to sexy hot Southern California, if you follow me so far.

I had scheduled a trip to Los Angeles, to stay four nights and three full days. This was a rare and exciting thing for me, not to mention expensive. I left my home early on May 20, hopping on the rapid. The ride to the airport was fine; indeed, it was the best part of the trip. I gazed at the glum scenery and felt a wave of affectionate condescension. "I'm going to be on the beach of the Pacific Ocean tomorrow," I thought, "and these people are going to be grousing around on Triskett Road, which is too bad. Heh, Heh."

I am a semi-aware person, and I knew Chicago's O'Hare Airport was a hub and busy. But when I got off that airplane I wasn't prepared for the incredible, teeming horde of people there. I know this sounds naïve, but I was truly shocked. This place made a Browns game at the Stadium look like a day at the suburban library. And here was the joker in the deck: there had been thunderstorms that morning, and flights were being delayed. Everything was backed up. I was getting a very real sense of hysteria from the people around me. I thought, "They'll iron this out, I'll be delayed a few hours, I'll just go a little later to a swinging cantina in Southern California with my friend." I still had two hours, so I waited near the TV monitors to find out where my gate was and when I'd be departing.

I waited, read the Tribune, twiddled my thumbs. There was always a mass of people around the monitors, peering anxiously up at them, blocking the aisles. I checked for my gate every fifteen minutes or so, and time began to run short. Finally, I looked up and next to my flight number I saw the word canceled.

Being an infrequent traveler, my first reaction to this was disbelief, then an interior wail. "What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do?" Another fellow was in the same boat, and we went to the next gate with another flight to L.A. The besieged agent at the gate told a young soldier that there was a waiting list of 160 people for the flight, which was due to leave in twenty minutes. I did not see this as a hopeful sign.

You must remember that there were thousands of people with my problem or variations thereof (missed connections, ruinous delays) and the confusion was epidemic. The customer service counter was like a prayer meeting: 500 howling travelers and an agent trying to calm them with a microphone and a suave, Continental accent. I tottered around aimlessly for a while, close to despair. There were masses of angry people at every conceivable source of information. I finally followed the Continental-accented agent's advice and called reservations on a free phone.

All flights to L.A. were standby for the rest of the day, the women said, and here is where I really didn't know what to do. I couldn't see waiting around in that madhouse for a flight that might never materialize, so I decided to go home, an 8 p.m. flight back to Cleveland. That was five hours away, but it was better than staying over and cutting my trip in half with all the travel time.

Now I had to fetch my luggage and call me friend, whose phone number I had conveniently forgotten to bring. I talked to a fellow who assured me that they'd find my bag and put it by the claims office, and I thought that item was handled. "You might want to get a Coke or some coffee," he said. "This might take thirty or forty minutes." I spent that time tracking down my friend's office number, calling her with the news, and getting my ticket back to Cleveland. I messed around at the ticket counter with a half-assed refund form just to get my name in the system, and listened to other tales of woe. Everyone, to coin a phrase, was getting screwed.

I went back down to baggage claim, and as you well know didn't see my bag. I put in another claim. "Relax," the beach boy agent said. "The claim is in. The bag will be by the window." There were many other "relaxed" people there, each with a worse story than the last. I waited in the lounge a few yards from the claim area, and kept checking. Three hours later, at 7 p.m., one hour before my flight was to leave for Cleveland, I went back to the office and waited for the beach boy agent again. He punched in my name and claim number and said, "Yup, we sent your bag on to L.A." I felt a strange kind of perverse joy, grinned and said, "Ya did, huh?!" He said "Sorry about that," and I started laughing.

Anyway, I didn't have to worry about carting around my clothes, and I awaited my flight back home. It boarded an hour and a half late, and we sat on the runway for another two hours waiting for the pilots to arrive, a new one on me. Then we waited for a new crew, then for clearance. The 8 p.m. flight left Chicago at midnight and arrived at Cleveland at 2 am

One good thing. In the spirit of the Great Indoors, not once did I set foot outside during my entire trip to Southern California.

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