I'm locked in the second stall from the left. Send help.

We buried my mother in July. Not such an unusual thing, since that's what most North Americans do with dead people, but it was a little odd seeing as how she died in April. The burial required a trip from South Cackalacky to Ottawa, as well as some convincing myself it's okay to look forward to a trip home, even if it's for a burial. If you're still trying to figure out why we waited so long, Ontario is cold as hell in April. Most cemetaries won't bury anyone until the frost melts, and we couldn't schedule it until July. It's definitely weird to have a funeral 3 months after the fact.

My erstwhile friend and work partner Martha (not her real name, although that's what I called her for the entire shift the first time I worked with her) came with me. She'd never been to Canada, and I had built it up to epic proportions in the 4 or 5 years that we've been friends.

The trip started poorly with us missing our flight out of Charlotte. I can't say JetBlue is entirely to blame, but they should shoulder at least 75% of it. We tried to check in 30 minutes before our flight, which has always been what I've done for domestic flights (we didn't fly directly to Canada, as that costs almost as much as my first semester of med school). I guess I forgot what a complete cluster Charlotte-Douglas airport is, because the guy at the check in counter all but laughed out loud at us when he told us there was no way we'd make the flight.

"It's boarding right now. You'll never make it."

"But the gate is right on the other side of security!"

"Have you seen the line at security?"

Riiiight. Charlotte has a lineup to clear security that normally stretches the entire length of the terminal. That day was no exception, and for once they had security checkpoints at both ends of the terminal open. I asked him if there was no possible way that we could get on the flight. No. I even busted out the whole "I don't want to miss my mother's funeral" deal. No. I'm just beginning to think this guy must not have had a mother when he narrowly redeemed himself by finding us seats on a later flight that would still get us there that same day.

Insert an entire day of crap flights, long layovers, and horrible disappointment. We finally got to Syracuse at about 1am, WAY too late to drive to Ottawa (not to mention the car rental counter closed at 11). We ended up staying at a hotel on the airport grounds that was shockingly not terrible. The next morning we were up early, picked up our Crapmobile rental at the terminal, and headed out. On the drive we slowly came to realize that our twelve dollar a day Crapmobile rental had a terrible dead body stench coming from the trunk. It was bad enough to pull over and check out the spare tire compartment. It was also bad enough to contemplate going back and asking for another car. There was no dead body and we were already down a full day due to travel bullshit, so we decided to get stinky food to combat the stench instead. Martha tried spilling half a Dunkin Donuts latte on her seat and herself, but it didn't help the smell so much as hurt her credibility as a contributing member of society.

When the day of the burial showed up, I stuck with tradition and opted not to wear the skirt I brought. I think my mother would have been proud (or at the very least not surprised). We got her into the ground with a minimum of freakouts, and proceeded to have lunch at an atrocious and stupidly expensive "Irish Pub". It was about as Irish as Swiss Chalet. She would have been horrified, and probably wouldn't have ordered anything. I considered a similar protest, but was overwhelmed by the availability of poutine. My personal mission to eat as much of it as possible while in Ontario won that battle.

The rest of the trip rocked. We spent time with my friends Cubicle Warrior and his wife The Amazing M, had dinner with my high school buddy No-Man, spent money at amazing Canadian stores (Roots, MEC), and packed so much food to bring back that Martha ended up buying another suitcase. We also got a fantastic tour of the Ontario Newborn Screening Program lab at CHEO (Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario) thanks to my university buddy Tall Rye. We also went to Tim Horton's a rediculous amount of times.

I suppose I should have known that such a great trip would have to end badly. Once again the airlines got us. We were almost to the Canada/US border when JetBlue called to tell us our flight was cancelled because of bad weather in Utah. No, not really, but it may as well have been. Apparently there was a tropical storm somewhere completely random (and nowhere near our flight), which resulted in JetBlue completely freaking out and canceling everything. We avoided tears, screaming, and freakouts of our own by stopping at the T.J. Maxx in Watertown and buying completely terrible sunglasses. And by terrible, I mean AWESOME. We stayed at our airport hotel again, and got up stupidly early the next day for our new flight.

The flight from Syracuse to JFK was uneventful. Short flight, cold drinks, no whining babies (or adults), and seat-back TVs on which I caught up on old Episodes of Rob & Big. I finally got to see the horse show episode. Fantastic.

JFK sucked. Bad. We sat there forever, then got on the plane and sat some more. I even managed to run an ems call and piss off a nurse, which I try to confine to doing on days I'm actually working. Made an exception this time. The flight attendant got on the PA and asked if there were any doctors or nurses on the plane for a little girl with chest pain. Nobody got up (and I was bored), so I went up and told him I was a paramedic. I sat and talked with the little girl for a while, and determined that she was bored, hot, and a big fan of panic attacks. I got her some free headphones and we watched SpongeBob for a while. About 10 minutes into it, some random woman came up and suddenly wanted to help.

"What's wrong with her?"

"I'm sorry, you are???"

"I'm a nurse."

"I'm a paramedic. She's fine, and I've got this. Thanks."

"Is she having chest pain?"

"She was, and now she's not. I've got this."

"Well, is it cardiac?"

"I don't happen to have my 25,000$ cardiac monitor with me just now, but seeing as how she's got a history of panic problems and this was resolved with talking and SpongeBob, I'd say likely not. I've got this. Thanks."

The flight attendant could barely contain himself, and the older guy next to the little girl didn't bother to, and giggled throughout the conversation. Nice. I love how suddenly she wanted to help once someone else stepped up. Note to everyone: Appearances are deceiving. Yes, I had on a punk t-shirt, studded belt and shoes with skulls on them. I've also been a medic for 8 years and now I'm a med student. I swear I'll stop dressing like that once I'm a doctor. Maybe.

We finally got off the ground, and eventually made it to Charlotte. We retrieved the Fish Car and hoofed it back to Columbia.

I love going home, but just once I'd love to take a trip that an airline didn't totally screw up. I'm really starting to think that it's impossible. It's worth it for a chance to go home, though.