Most of my days are fairly ordinary, but not the day before heading out on a vacation to Mexico. Everything was all set, and bags were packed. We had dropped off the dog at Doggy Daycare (the dogsitters’ house). We had checked into our flights. All was good and we were about to hit the sack early since we had an early flight and needed to be at the airport bright and early at 5:00 AM.
As we were running final errands, I received a text that our flight had been canceled. Immediate dread and disbelief set in. I ran downstairs and logged into the computer to look for other flight options. Usually the airline will automatically rebook you on the next flight, however this was not the case. After scrambling to find flights, we found one for two days later. It was a red-eye through Mexico city, with a two hour layover. We purchased it, knowing we would have 24 hours to cancel if, by some stroke of luck, our airline booked us on a better flight.
Meanwhile, we called our airline and received the standard answering service. The message said “Your current wait time is between seven and nine…” I expected “minutes”, but the message said “hours”. Ugh. I put my phone on speaker, continued packing, and waited. We knew we were in for a long night. We turned off the lights and talked, while listening hopefully for the hold music to end. Any music, played repeatedly, can get annoying very quickly, but I think this is especially true for hold music. We were scared to fall asleep in case someone picked up earlier than expected, and we didn’t want to lose our shot at talking with someone.
As the night and early morning wore on, we eventually started to nod off. Around 5:00 AM we heard the phone make a few beeps, and immediately sprang up, assuming an agent had taken the call. No such luck. The three beeps indicated that the call had been disconnected, and we were left with no reward for our hours of waiting on hold. Strangely enough, I checked my phone and saw I had received a text message that our flight was on time. This was quite puzzling, but we reacted immediately. We got the kids up and frantically ran our bags down to the car and rushed off to the airport, with the slim hope that the cancelation had been changed. When we arrived at the airport we confirmed that the flight had indeed been canceled. After waiting a couple more hours in line to speak with an agent, we learned that there were no options to get to our destination for the next three or four days. It was quite a bummer, but we felt very lucky to have purchased the “backup” tickets for the following day.
Oh – and are you not sure how to pronounce “rough”? Check here for some help with all those difficult “ough” words!
Helpful Vocabulary
Here are some words you might useful:
| to hit the sack | to go to bed. You can also say “to hit the hay”, “to turn in for the night”, and many other phrases. |
| bright and early | it simply means “early”, but the phrase “bright and early” is often used. We sometimes also say “at the crack of dawn”. |
| to run errands | to do necessary things, and perhaps go to different places to accomplish tasks. We often run errands on Saturday morning (go shopping, bring kids to activities, drop off books at the library, etc) |
| scramble | to do things quickly and sometimes in a panic. Usually you scramble to do something, and the word “scramble” is not often used on its own. You can also scramble eggs (beat them before cooking them). |
| red-eye (flight) | a flight that flies at night. It is called a Red-Eye because you usually don’t get much sleep during the flight and you arrive with red eyes from being tired. |
| to book (or rebook) | to make a reservation for something. “to book” usually takes a direct object without a preposition, whereas “to make a reservation” often uses the preposition “for”. I booked a flight. I made a reservation for a hotel. |
| to be in for (something) | this means that you are expecting, often either bad or good. “to be in for a long night” means that we expected a long night without any sleep. Other common times you’ll hear this: “You are in for a treat tonight at our show” (you should expect great entertainment). “You are in for a surprise” (you will be surprised). |
| shot | opportunity or chance. To “lose your shot” means to miss your opportunity. |
| bummer | a disappointment or a shame. |
Phrasal Verbs
Some important phrasal verbs to know:
| to head out | to leave |
| to drop off | to bring someone/something to a place and leave them there |
| to check into a flight | you check “into” a flight, or you can simply say that you check in (but NOT check “in” a flight). However, you can check in a library book that you had previously checked out (borrowed) from the library. |
| to set in | usually this is used with feelings or conditions. After working very hard for many hours, fatigue set in. |
| to log into | also “to sign into”. This is usually followed by “the computer” or “the account”. If no direct object is used, you can say “to log in” or “to sign in”. It means to enter your username and password. |
| to wear on | to continue after a long time. Usually this infers that something becomes boring. Example: The beginning of the movie was great, but after a while it wore on and I fell asleep before it was over. |
| to get (someone) up | to get (someone) up – to wake someone up and get them out of bed. It is hard to get the kids up to do chores on weekend mornings. |
| to rush off | to hurry to go somewhere |
