Saved by the typhoon

When I was in HK a couple of weeks ago, I barely made it to my flight back to Manila. I had a 2PM flight, and I walked in to the airport at about 1PM. Check-in girl at cathay Pacific told me I was late, but at least still made it. I promised myself I'd never let myself be late for a flight again. Until yesterday morning...

I was in Singapore the whole week and had a 9:40AM flight back to Manila. I figured the cab ride from the hotel to Changi would take about 15 mins tops, so I thought it would be fine if I grab some of those breakfast buffet at the lobby very quickly. They had those chicken siew mai (siomai) that I really loved. And so I checked out and hopped on a cab and it was 8:35PM. Crap! It's gonna be realy tight again, but still possible. Then what would've been 15 min ride almost took forever. When I finally arrived at terminal 2, it was already 9:18AM. Fuck... I am screwed!

So I went in line for check-in and then handed over my ticket. The girl looked at my ticket, then at me, and then at her monitor, and then read the ticket again. She finally asked:

"Your flight is at 9:40AM?"

"Yes"

I was thinking of some plausible excuse I could make. Of course having travelled a lot, I knew that usually, check-in would close 45 mins before departure time, and boarding gates 10 mins before. So technically, if she just let me, I could still hope to clear immigration in less than 5 mins and then run like hell to my gate before it closes in 12 mins. Never in my mind did I expect the flight would be delayed, especially since I was flying Singapore airlines. And so I was fucking ecstatic when she finally told me that it had been pushed to 11:00 AM because of the typhoon in Manila.

"That's right!... there is a super typhoon there right now"

I can't fucking beleive it. My wife called me the day before all concerned about it. I told her if the flight got cancelled, I'd stay for another day or two. But I saw in the internet that it actually veered away from a direct hit on Metro Manila so I thought everything was ok.

"Sir, we will be offering you free breakfast at the food gallery."

"Really? Where is the food gallery?"

"It's on the second floor, after you pass immigration. Just present your boarding pass."

I look at my boarding pass and see that the gate won't open till 10:00 AM. Holy Crap! Is this my day or what?