This year, for my birthday, I was supposed to go on a business trip. I generally go on one of those about once, maybe twice during a year. It just happened to be on my birthday this year. I made the necessary adjustments to my schedule, and was ready to go. The flight was not until the afternoon, so I could still go to work in the morning.

The morning of my birthday, I got up, got ready for work and headed out the door. On my way to work, still within eyesight of the building in which I live, my day started off with a bang as I got a flat tire. I changed the tire, and headed to the tire shop to get a new tire. I knew I would be parking my car at the airport later, and didn't want to park for too long on the donut (plus I didn't want to risk getting another flat and not having a spare at 10 PM when I got home from my trip).

The tire shop was close by, so it wasn't very far out of the way. The guy at the shop informed me that it would be about an hour, so I sat down to get my usual fix of Dirt Bike Monthly and Muscular Dudes without Jewels (both magazines easily four months old). No sooner than two and a half hours later, I walked out with a new tire.

While I was there, an elderly man showed up and sat down in the comfortable waiting room. Without having previously tested the remote, he picked it up, turn it over, and took out the batteries. He put them in the planter next to him. From he pocket he produced two "new" batteries, and put them into the remote. Eventually he got the TV to turn on, and we (a group of four adults) proceeded to be graced with PBS. The only thing on PBS in the mornings is kids shows. He never looked at the TV again. Sure glad he turned it on.

Off I went to work, where I would be for only a couple hours before leaving for my flight. Everybody seemed to be in a bad mood, and needed answers immediately, if not the day before.

It seems that whenever I park at the airport, I somehow pick the parking spot that is both the furthest from the shuttle stop, and the shuttle stop that requires you to stop at every other stop before I get to where I'm going. I got on the flight, and was 1 row behind the emergency row seating. Determining that those seats would remain empty, I took one of them, and we were on our way. The plane stopped somewhere on the runway because something wasn't right. We had to return to the gate so they could change some valve. About an hour later, we got back on the plane, and were on our way - only this time we had two new passengers, one of which had been assigned to my previously unassigned extra leg-room emergency row seat. Back I went to my other seat.

We were on our way again. While taxiing, the pilot came on to say that there was a temporary weather problem (which he called micro bursts) which generally doesn't last very long. So we sat on the plane and waited for the this weather to pass. It was about a half hour or so, and it seemed that we were on our way again. No more than a few seconds after that, the pilots voice came on yet again, to tell us that there was a power outage at a radar station that controlled the air space through which we were about to fly. They had no idea of the duration of the outage, so we were going to hang out there on the runway to see if it came back on. About an hour and a half later, the pilot came back on to inform us we were going back to the gate. Our flight attendant told us our flight had been cancelled and that agents would be available at the gate to help us reschedule, etc.

No agents were at the top, so another one was sought out to help us. They told us that because the power outage wasn't their fault, we were stuck to figure out our own room/board details. I got my checked luggage and went home at 10:30, now having been at the airport for the past 6+ hours.

A scale? I'll take one each year. Underwear? I actually asked for it this year. Nose hair trimmer? Christmas. Mouth Wash? Thanks to my hotel, I got some for free. Airport hang-ups on my birthday? No thanks. Business trips on my birthday? I'll pass.

(to make this trip a little worse, the next morning the plane had been changed so our previously assigned seats had been changed and our flight was delayed again because we didn't have a pilot. We sat there for 50 minutes until he showed up and we could leave)