[PilotMan]

Ahhh, so I totally don't want to post this, but I feel like I should if only to show that shit happens to all of us. This whole mess started on Friday.

Somehow my normal routine got screwed up and I just wasn't firing on all cylinders. I left to catch my commuting flight to Newark, a 730p flight. This night I had 2 extra backup flights in addition to my normal 2. It's a 20 min drive from my home to the parking lot.

I pull into the lot and realize that I've forgotten my badges at home. I'm pretty sure this is my wife's fault. I haven't forgotten them in literally years. She wasn't home when I left, like she normally is, and therefore, it's her fault. Thankfully, she was home when I called and was able to meet me part way so I didn't have to drive all the way home. I had some time to play with, but I was really concerned that I might miss my planned flight.

The only reason that it was a big deal was that I had a 0430 wakeup the next day for the start of my trip. I didn't want to get there too late. I managed to get back to the airport and hustled onto the shuttle, then past security, then to the gate. There were plenty of seats, so that wasn't going to be an issue. I get to the gate and find out that the last few flights into Newark had been delayed by an average of 45 minutes and that the delay seemed to be carrying on. They had had some rainy, overcast weather that might have contributed to it, but it just didn't seem like they were catching up.

My flight then ends up being delayed, then they put passengers from the later flight on ours, because it's smart. Once again, I still had a seat. We finally got boarded up and blasted off, then touched down in Newark just over an hour late. By the time I got to the crash pad it was 1100. On the bright side, I had the place to myself. But I think that might have been part of the problem too. I don't know. So I quickly unpack, and then set up for the morning. I say goodnight to the wife and head to bed, in a different bed than I normally sleep in, because it had a power strip right next to it to charge my phone.

On the way to the pad I had set my alarm for the morning. I had adjusted the volume on my alarm because I had noticed that morning it was too freaking loud. I get up pretty good, in fact, I've gotten up just from the vibration of the the phone when it's gone off and been accidentally silenced. I had wanted it quieter so as not to wake up the whole room when it went off. Still, as I went to bed in a different bed, with my phone in a different place, I couldn't shake the idea that it was too quiet. I shrugged it off, strange room and all. I would be fine. You see where this is going.

I woke up numerous times, the last being around 330a knowing that I had an hour of sleep to go. Then I turned over and the room was bright. Say what? Where is that coming from? Oh, the sun. Fuck me. The sun should NOT be up at 430a. I look over at my phone, 644a. My flight literally leaves for Costa Rica in 16 minutes.

You wanna talk about an painful adrenaline rush? The fear and dread of this is comparable to anything. I haven't had this happen, this bad, in my entire 13 year career. Not 5 minutes later, the phone rings. It's just the company trying to figure out where I'm at. I throw myself at their feet. So sorry, so embarrassed. Tell them that the earliest I can possibly get to the plane is close to 730a. That makes the flight out 30 minutes late, all on me.

The company though is ok. They deal with this regularly. It happens. They were probably just happy that I was that close and it was that easy. Having to recrew that flight might have cost a 2 hour delay, depending on where the next available first officer would have been.

I have to bust ass to get out of the room to make the 700a van and do indeed get to the plane by 725a. Ten minutes later, we were pushing back.

I had plenty of time on our 5 hour flight to think about it. I won't get in trouble. My body took hours to come down from that rush. The flight seemed to fly by. Haha. Even 5 hours of it. It immediately makes me second, third, and fourth guess my alarms and report times for the next couple days. I really don't want to have to go through that again anytime soon.