This year, I was flying a redeye (starting on December 22nd) from California back to Norfolk, with ONE simple layover in at Chicago's O'Hare airport. The trip was doomed from the word go.

When I arrived to the airport, my flight was already delayed an hour and a half -- causing me to miss my 6 a.m. connecting flight. The airline representatives in Sacramento were actually helpful, booking me immediately on an 11:30 am flight. Helpful yes, timely no. That flight would have put me in Norfolk at 2:40...about ten minutes after I was supposed to be at work. The gate agent sweetly told me she would book me on that flight, and also put me on the standby list for an 8:00 a.m. flight. The only catch about that 8:00 a.m. flight? I was ninth on the standby list, basically setting me up for a seat on the wing.

When I finally arrived at O'Hare, the gate agent told me I had to run and check in for the 8:00 a.m. flight. I landed at Gate A7 -- the 8:00 a.m. flight took off out of C23. After checking for that flight and finding I'd moved up the list to fifth (woohoo!), gate agent #3 said I still needed to check in for the 11:30 a.m. flight...just in case. But of course, that flight couldn't leave out of the C-section. Nope. It was time to make a mad dash to gate F35. Seriously.

In the end, I made it onto the 8:00 am flight and into the WVEC newsroom on time, but it wasn't easy. Apparently, the snow swirling around the terminal got worse right after I took off, and my flight out of Chicago was one of the last ones not facing serious delays.

I have to say thank-you to the United Airlines gate agents for helping a crazy woman make it back to work and keep her job. A big thank-you also goes out to 13News producer Pearl Fyderek for picking me up from Norfolk Int'l, pumping me full of coffee and dropping me off in the newsroom.

Consider it a lesson learned, because next year, I won't be traveling the friendly skies on December 23rd.