The Travel Gods Giveth And They. . .

Last night I had a college Tarot card reading engagement at a castle where I did a seance several years ago.

Yes, that’s really a thing I’ve been doing for ages now. Colleges fly me out to do 4 hours of Tarot card readings for their students.

And do seances.

And mind reading shows.

I could talk about that for hours, but I want to focus on what happened after.

Travel Habits

Since travel tends to be super shifty (keep reading for more proof), I like to get my hotels on the day-of. I rarely know where I’m going to be with any certainty beyond where I’m being paid to show up.

The Adventure

After last night’s engagement, I book a hotel room by the Philadelphia airport.

I arrive and the front desk person said they were oversold, and the booking system doesn’t know it which is why they took my money but couldn’t give me a room.

Fun.

So I find another hotel that’s relatively nearby; I get in & get settled around midnight.

And I have a 3am wake up call.

Alarm goes off nice & loud & I’m brought out of a deep sleep where I think I was comparing wallpapers.

Get in the car, drop it off at the rental return, and then get to the terminal.

Where there’s a line that curves back on itself because there are so many people at 3:30am.

TSA pre-check saves the day and I get on the plane for our 5ish take off.

But then something that I noticed at check-in, but didn’t fully think about, is answered.

I saw all the bags piling up next to the conveyor belt.

And the pilot explains it while we’re sitting at the gate 20 minutes past take-off time.

“Hey everyone. The luggage system for the whole airport isn’t working. They’re having to go get our bags by hand. The first bag isn’t onboard yet; we’ll let you know when we know more.”

Woof.

I tend to make cushy layovers. An hour and a half. Two hours.

My buffer is eaten up before we leave.

We’ll be arriving in Atlanta after my flight home takes off.

ˉ\_(ツ)_/ˉ

So the travel gods say I won’t be getting home around 11am.

The next flight they can get me on is. . . 11pm.

Double woof.

12 hours in Atlanta.

The Delta app tells me to talk with a gate agent, so I find one that isn’t currently swamped.

I say hi. Treat her like a human. Make her laugh.

Standard operating procedure.

Then she says,

“Oh, I can get you on a noon flight. Let me see your license.”

Then she gets hands me a first class ticket.

Awesomesauce.

The Lesson

And now you know why I say “I do the gig for free; I’m being paid to travel.”

And you also understand why I would have easily gone to an airport bar and get hammered a couple years ago.?Glad I stopped doing that .

Hope you’re having a perfectly boring Friday; mine has had enough excitement for the both of us!

Best thoughts,

~Jonathan

Jonathan Pritchard is a mentalist-turned-consultant & founder of?ZAVANT enterprises ?&?ROI Trade Shows . Both help clients have more successful events.

He's also the?author of several books ?focused on the power of applied psychology, memory, and motivation.

Connect with him on?Twitter ?and?YouTube ?for more behind-the-scenes stories from the road & boardrooms across the world.