After a full night of St. Patrick's Day activities in Chicago, we headed straight to the airport for our early morning flight to Cancun. Unfortunately, our tour company forgot to inform us our departure had been delayed 16 hours. We spent the next 10 hours wandering O’Hare Airport and passing out on benches, only to be woken by our tour director, who was willing to provide some "liquid compensation" for our troubles. We played drinking games in the airport bar for the next three hours, until one of my friends fell off the barstool and injured himself severely. Police and rescue workers took us to Cook County Hospital’s overcrowded emergency room, where our ambulance driver lied to the hospital in order to get our friend immediate treatment so we might still have a chance to make our flight. After he was released, we raced back to the airport. When we arrived at the gate, we realized the news of our "dilemma" had spread to the other 200 people getting on our plane, who clapped and cheered as we boarded the flight with minutes to spare.
--Al