December 21, 5:50am:

Worst news ever. Flight has been cancelled. Huge snow storm. Horrendously long lines— in one of them now, hoping to get on the 2:30 flight to Copenhagen and catch connecting flight home tonight.

December 21, 9:33 am:

Still in line, moving painfully slow. Someone in the family in front of me has a case of the farts. Annoying. I bet it’s the chubby kid. It’s always the chubby kid.

December21, 10 am:

Not going to Copenhagen. But guess who is? That’s right, little mister fartface and his whole slob family. Blood pressure rising.  Need a Cinnabon.

December 21, 10:13am:

Line at Cinnabon of unspeakable length. Don’t care—right now this glutinous mound of fat is more important to me than seeing my family.

December 21, 11:30am:

Got 10 Cinnabons, just in case. Ate three, stowed six in my carry-on, used one to bribe the lady monitoring the line at the United ticket counter. Got a spot near the front. Feeling pleasantly engorged. Staying optimistic.

December 21, 12:02am:

Unfuckingbelievable. I think my spleen is ruptured. A group of Australians behind me saw my greased transaction with the line lady and went mad max on me. They must have burst an insulin clot when they were shoving me to the back of the line. I don’t mean to sound bigoted, but Australians are the most brutish people in the world. And the ugliest.

December 21, 3:45pm:

Really wish I brought something more to read than the December issue of Details. Don’t get me wrong. Great magazine. I owe everything I know about performing world-class cunnilingus as well as my prized pair of eyebrow tweezers to their staff of writers. But reading it in public makes me feel kind of like a—how-do-you-say—oh yes— moron.

December 21, 5:30pm

So bored.  So tired of hearing CNN on the monitor above me. So death squads are terrorizing Ivory Coast, but do you have any idea how long I’ve been in line? I’m trying to get home for Christmas, so don’t burden me, Anderson Cooper, with your lament about death squads.

December 21, 7pm:

Great. No flights today. Ticketing agent said my best option is to sleep overnight and see if I can get placed on something tomorrow. Said the wait might last a few days, possibly until after Christmas. Does anyone know the best place to sleep in Heathrow?

December 21, 9pm:

Thanks for the tip on the ventilation shaft by baggage claim 4. Have made a cozy bed in here with clothes from my suitcase. Just feasted on a couple more Cinnabons and am quite engrossed in Details’ investigative piece on male cheerleading. Have a feeling tomorrow will be better.

December 22, 1:52am:

Hey, how many people did you tell about the ventilation shaft?! Seven more have shown up and we’re at capacity. A German accountant is leering at my carry-on. He must smell the Cinnabons. If he touches them, I will destroy him.

December 22, 9:33am

Spirit broken. Fell into stink- and heat-induced sleep coma, overslept, and awoke in the arms of the German accountant. Pretty sure there’s frosting on his lips. Kicked him in the neck out of suspicion. Ran to the ticket counter, where the line was already out the door and snaked into the short-term parking garage.

December 23, 10:12am

Realized I forgot my luggage, with wallet in it, in the ventilation shaft. Sprinted back in cold sweat. Nothing. Frantically searched for airport security and related my story. Airport security guy asks what I was doing in a ventilation shaft in the first place. He wants me to go with him to answer a few questions.

December23, 7:00pm

Now I know—in airport security jargon, “answer a few questions” means “answer a few questions while a gloved finger wiggles around in your anus.” I will never complain about the TSA body scan again.  Thank god, have been released.

December 23, 11:08pm

Spent the last four hours ravenous— loitering in duty free in vain attempt to pocket candy. Every fucking thing is oversized! Store clerk picked up the phone when she saw me trying to stuff a jumbo Toblerone and a handle of Chivas down my collar. Left empty-handed in a panic. But, by stroke of luck, found a bonanza of Auntie Anne’s pretzel cheese in an overflowing trash bin near Delta counter.  No Cinnabon, but it’ll do.

December 24, 3:19am

So cold. So scared. Will I ever get out of here?

December 24, 4:06am

Tormented by a single unrelenting thought: what if that wasn’t pretzel cheese? Of course it was, I tell myself. But then my devil voice whispers: well, then what was it doing in a pile of diapers?

December 24, 7:30am

Sleepless night, but I conquered my demons. Queued up at United ticket line before dawn, resolved to make it home, even if it’s the day after Christmas. Realized I still had a photocopy of my passport in my pants pocket.  There’s still hope!

December 24, 1:23pm

Hallelujah!  Finally spoke to the ticket agent who accepted my passport copy and booked me on a flight to Madrid tonight, arriving home Christmas morning! Save some eggnog for me!

December 24, 5:40pm

Made it through security, plane has arrived, about to board. Hey that’s funny— that sounds like my name being called on the intercom.

December 24,  6:02pm

Name definitely being called on the intercom.

December 24, 6:09pm

They found my bags! Lady at the gate told me sweetly just to wait at the counter and someone would come for me. Guess everything always works out in the end.

December 25, 12:03am

Tried to tell them it was just icing, you know, from a cinnamon roll. But they couldn’t understand why I would line the inside of my carry-on with icing, nor why a normal cinnamon roll would have so much icing, especially one with such high levels of silicate residue. It’s no normal cinnamon roll, I told them, it’s a Cinnabon, and I had six of them in there. That’s absurd, they said. No one eats six Cinnabons, besides, we didn’t find any cinnamon rolls in there. Damn that German, I screamed, tears welling up.

It’s ok, they told me. Why don’t you come with us and answer a few questions.

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