I’m not sure I can explain how shocked I was when I arrived at gate C 53 this afternoon and discovered my strategically planned — read: allowed me to sleep in — flight to Chicago had been delayed THREE HOURS. Then I had an unforgettable discussion with the gate attendant who told me I might want to ”examine other ways” to get to O’Hare.

”OK…but isn’t that, you know, your job?”
”(Stare)”

Sidebar: This happens to me far too frequently now, but was once rare. I was rarely ever delayed until the 2004-05 basketball season when I’m convinced I caught John Beilein’s perpetual travel problems. Remember the struggle getting to the Big East Tournament in 2004? Well, after I was caught in a handful of coinciding delays after that, I accused him of as much when we were delayed in Oklahoma City after the O’Reilly All-College Classic before Christmas ’05. He addresed my mock frustration with an apology…and we sat on the runway for 70 minutes.

WVU almost always flew commercial then and I was somehow seated next to Johannes Herber. He read a German novel and I’m pretty sure my IQ jumped seven points that day. We were like two hours late ariving in Pittsburgh, Herber made like O.J. through the terminal and he still missed his connecting flight that was supposed to take him to a friend’s place, where he’d spend the holiday. Beilein went well out of his way to find Herber and Herber ended up driving with Mike Gansey to Cleveland and made his flight the next day. End sidebar…

In case you couldn’t tell, I’m entirely bored here. Following my mind-numbing chat with the attendant, it was agreed I was better off waiting out the delay. I found a place that welcomes 21-year-olds, from where I write this on my MotoQ as Space Hog riffs over the speakers. Along the way I saw something quite surprisng. A WVU fan was wearing a dark blue No. 14 football jersey.

Not unusual you say? I agreed at first. WVU fans are common in this airport and I thought it was a Jason Gwaltney, which was once as popular as Noel Devine’s No. 7 before Noel Devine. At worst, it was a Charles Hales, who was popular in a blue-collar way when he backed up Raheed Marshall.

It wasn’t a Gwaltney or a Hales or even a Hollywood Davis — officially gone from WVU, by the way, since before the Fiesta Bowl. It was a Brad Lewis jersey, name on the back and all! Even better, he was waiting on a flight to Detroit, perhaps to exact his revenge.

Weirdest throwback ever. For some reason, I felt the need to share this…