The Kindness of Strangers

For the past few weeks, I have had business in Little Rock, Arkansas. I have to say, I am pleasantly surprised by Little Rock. I've never considered myself to be a big city snob or anything (heck, I'm originally from the Detroit 'burbs - how snobby can you be?), but I never know what to expect when I see a new city. Don't get me wrong, Little Rock is not small. It is the capital, after all. But it's hardly D.C. I was pleasantly surprised. Really cute downtown, really nice hotels (The Peabody, which is awesome - they have real live ducks that hang out in the fountain in the lobby) and plenty of Starbucks (one on every corner, it seems).

The problem with Little Rock - the major problem - is getting there. Last week, I had meetings in Little Rock on Monday morning at 9 a.m. What did this mean for me? It meant flying out to Little Rock on Sunday night. This would not normally be a big deal, but it meant giving up Super Bowl Sunday. Just saying, oh well . . . .

Well, because there are no direct flights to Little Rock (as you might imagine), I flew into Charlotte to connect there. I had plenty of time in Charlotte to eat dinner and watch a little of the big game. I even made a new friend at the bar. We were chatting for some time. Then, when it was 7:35 (35 minutes until my scheduled departure), I decided maybe I should head to the gate. On the way there, I passed a flight attendant who was talking about the Little Rock flight being delayed - by an hour. I confirmed with her that this was in fact my flight, and I then headed back to the bar to watch a little more of the game with my new friend. An hour later, I started making my way to the gate again, only this time, well before I got there, I heard an announcement: "All people on the cancelled flight to Little Rock need to go to the customer service desk." Well, I knew that was my flight, and I simply did an about-face and found the customer service counter. I'm lucky I did. I was fourth in line out of at least 50 people, and service was SLOW. I overheard the people in front of me. Something about not having any flights on US Air to Little Rock until TOMORROW NIGHT at 8:10 - a full 24 hours after the scheduled flight. I wasn't too concerned at first, thinking, oh well - I'll just get there when I get there. But then I started really panicking about missing my meeting.

I did overhear a couple from Arkansas talking about flying to Memphis and then renting a car to drive to Little Rock (2 hours away - which I knew, but certainly wasn't willing to tackle myself - not at 1:00 a.m. anyway, which was probably when the flight was scheduled to land in Memphis). So when I finally got up to the counter, I asked, "So what's the deal with Memphis?" Well, the Arkansas couple overheard me and approached. They asked if I wanted to go in on a car with them. My immediate response: "Sure. Sounds great." This meant being a passenger and not a driver. I would make it to Little Rock after all. They pulled in the guy in front of me as well.

There I am, on a Sunday night - Monday morning, depending on the kindness of strangers to get me to Little Rock so that I could make my meeting. At first I thought it sounded ridiculous that they wanted more passengers. But the cost of the rental car was $270. That's a lot for a young couple. That's a lot for anyone. They just wanted to get home and made a judgment call. I looked safe enough.

I arrived at my hotel at 3:30 a.m. and made it to my meetings. Thank you to Jeremy and Cheri, wherever you are.