Friday Random Ten: Stuck inside of Hartsfield with the Memphis blues again edition.

You may or may not be hearing from me that much over the next week or so, because I'm going to be in New York for the next few days and Washington, D.C., after that. But I did have to relate this bit of weirdness from earlier this afternoon, just to see if anything like this has happened to anyone else and to make sure I'm not losing my mind. (And yes, it's weirder than the "Chandler incident" from Wednesday.)

I leave Birmingham at a few minutes after seven this morning, get to Atlanta about a quarter after 10, park my car at the College Park MARTA station and ride one stop down to the airport. (I have to do cheap shit like this because I can't afford to pay $80 to park my car for a week. No, I'm not worried that my car's going to end up stolen -- I doubt any car thief would even be able to back my car out of a parking space the size of the one I parked in.) I wait in line at the check-in counter -- I won't diss the airline directly by calling it out by name, but it rhymes with "ScareTran" -- check my two suitcases, do the whole take-your-laptop-out-of-the-bag-and-put-it-in-a-separate-bin, now-take-your-shoes-off nonsense at the security checkpoint, hurry to the gate. I'm pushing it closer than I usually try to do, but I've still got plenty of time.

I get to gate C3 about quarter to noon, 25 minutes or so before the plane is scheduled to leave. I sit there and wait. It's noon, then 10 after, then 20 after. Nothing happens. I call my friend in New York to let her know my flight's going to be late, and when I look up, the "Flight 349 / White Plains / 12:09 p.m." sign at the gate has been replaced by "Myrtle Beach / 2:00 p.m."

Starting to worry that something very bad has just happened, I run down to the information counter and ask what happened to flight 349 to White Plains. The guy tells me it left at 12:09 p.m., as scheduled. Now, I sat there from 11:45 to 12:09 and never heard a "last call," never heard my name paged for one of those "Hey, douchebag, your plane's about to leave" announcements, never heard squat from the gate attendant at any point ever. Apparently the plane just left without me, in spite of the fact that I was sitting there the whole time.

Anyway, the guy I talked to was nice and put me on the 5:25 to HPN, so now I'm sitting at a different gate with nothing better to do than watch the planes go by and blog about all this crap. And I had to go all the way back to Terminal A to get an adult beverage, because all the bars in Terminal C were overflowing with people watching the flippin' World Cup.

But anyway. If you're reading this and it's before 5:25 Eastern (4:25 Central), say a little prayer that I actually get on this one -- otherwise I may be walking to Westchester County. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

But here's what I've been listening to while I sit and wait and watch airplanes:

1. Bobby Darin, "More"
2. The Beatles, "Revolution"
3. Moby, "Inside"
4. Gorillaz, "19-2000"
5. Röyksopp, "Someone Like Me"
6. KRS-One, "Real Hip-Hop -- Part II"
7. DJ Shadow, "Ape Shall Never Kill Ape"
8. Steven Wright, "Super Sounds"
9. Dead Kennedys, "Kill the Poor"
10. 3rd Bass, "Episode #3"

So how are you doing? Music selections, weird stories, and/or off-color jokes go in the comments . . .