Everybody’s got an airport story. Stuck here, delayed there. Tired, sweaty, angry people pushing and shoving. Crabby airline employees. Cheap bar booze.

This is not one of those stories. This is about two Southwest Airlines employees, Becky and Heather, who made sure I got home.

It happened two weeks ago. All I wanted to do was fly home from Kansas City on the 6:40 p.m. It’s a one-hour flight, and one I’ve made dozens of times in the two years we’ve been working with the Kansas Department of Labor. Piece of cake.

And I really needed to get home, because the next day I had to turn around and fly to Dallas to work with our friends at Frito-Lay.

It was not to be. While K.C. was sunny, the air was heavy and sticky, the kind that Kansans know all too well.

Twisters!

Still, our flight was on time, and as the plane took off I settled into my seat and dug out my last Southwest drink ticket for a glass of wine. (Why am I always down to my last ticket?)

We were cruising right along when our captain came on the intercom to tell us that we were actually heading south, to Oklahoma, to make a giant, sweeping turn around a nasty band of weather pounding the midsection of the country.

There were the usual groans, but what can you do? This trip would just take a little longer.

Make that a lot longer. About an hour later we began our descent—into St. Louis! Chicago was shut down, our pilot said, adding that we were also out of gas.

No grumbling this time. By all means, my good man, pull over at the nearest filling station. And be quick about it.

In St. Louis, a few people decided to get off the plane, but most of us stayed, and less than an hour later we were back in the air, heading for Chicago and home. We were 25 miles from Midway Airport and starting to descend when things took a bad turn.

It got real bumpy, with lots of lightning out the windows. I should have been worried, but my brain does weird things in tense situations, and on this occasion it decided to focus on the theme song from Gilligan’s Island.

The weather starting getting rough, the tiny ship was tossed.

(Everybody) The Minnow would be lost. . . .

Not to worry, the Skipper called out. We’re going to Indianapolis. And so we did.

That’s when I met Heather and Becky. They were working the B3 gate when we all stumbled out of the plane. It was 12:30 a.m. They greeted us warmly, then they went to work.

Since the airport was closed, they asked the ground crew to bring out some extra snacks, soft drinks and waters. Then they immediately began working on alternatives for everyone.

We had two choices:
1. Bag it. Get on a fight the next morning, go get a hotel room and grab some sleep. More than a few people decided to do that.
2. Hang tough. We might still get this plane out of here, they told us.

I decided to wait, still hoping to get home in time to grab a few hours sleep and then catch my morning flight to Dallas.

And Becky and Heather were right there with me. We talked. We told jokes. We looked at the weather on the radar. By around 2:30, we still thought we’d get out.

Then the storm that was eating Chicago hit the Indy airport. Hard. A voice on a loudspeaker told us that the control tower was being evacuated.

Chicago suddenly seemed very far away.

And still Heather and Becky stayed. They made sure everyone got on a morning flight and were still there when their relief came. Just before they left, around 5:45 a.m., I bought Heather a cup of coffee. She handed me my boarding pass and gave me a big hug.

The ultimate in face-to-face communications.

Thanks for playing with us, Heather and Becky said to me as they were leaving, at least five hours after their normal shift had ended. We’ll see you again.

“Hey, this was so much fun I’ll be here tomorrow,” I said. “And I expect to see both of you.”

A flight attendant standing nearby jumped in: “It is tomorrow.”

I turned to Becky and Heather. “See?"