Stranded? Marooned? Share your stories!

I guess I'm lucky that I've never been stranded on a plane.

Probably the most I've ever had to wait for a plane is probably like an hour at most, and at least that was leaving, and not just waiting at the airport to get off of the plane.

So now that airlines are trying to avoid getting fined for flight delays of three hours or more, those sneaky airlines are just flat-out cancelling flights. Sure, great way to avoid a government fine, but PRETTY DARNED JERKY if you're the one waiting to get the heck outta dodge!

What's your worst experience of getting stranded somewhere -- either in the middle of a vacation, or getting left behind somewhere?

I was always paranoid as a child -- I'd freak out if I even got separated from my mom in a store for two minutes. (Oh my abandonment issues.... Yeah, my folks learned pretty quickly not to ever leave me alone, kinda sucked on dates) I'm the friend that would always ask 8 million questions about where exactly you're gonna meet up. "Like, I'll be at the table by the window. Not the high windows, the low windows. And not the low tables, the high tables. On the right. Two tables away from the exit. The exit on the left. I'll be on the right."

So you can imagine the distress I felt on this one occasion ... when I got STRANDED AT THE TRAIN STATION. In the middle of the night. Ugh. A bunch of my friends were meeting up in Philly, and even though we all had diferent plans (dinner, bar, club, etc.), we'd all sort of agreed that we'd eventually end up at this one bar by a certain time. I took the train into town, and was going to catch a ride home with one of the other friends when we met up at the bar at the scheduled time.

Except, everyone was behind schedule and this was at the time when not everyone carried a cell phone. Confusion rained down, and while I sat with the friends that did show up, it became painfully obvious that the Jersey-bound friend had already left town.

It's now past midnight in Center City. Not to worry anyone, I got a cab to 30th Street Station, reassuring everyone that it'd be fine, I'd just catch the last train home, and just figure out my way home from the train station. I'm not sure why I said or did this, when I fully knew the last NJT train had already long gone. I guess in the back of my head I expected some mass transportation miracle to just happen to me somehow.

WRONG!

I found an empty bench in the middle of the train station (which thankfully is well lit and open all night) and sat daintily with my purse acting like everything was normal. Even though the place was like a ghost town and everything was closed.

A random cleaning person came by to chit chat every now and again, which would've been a-ok if he hadn't been so creepy. (I lied and told him my name was Jill, which unnerved me everytime I'd hear "How ya doin' Jill?" echoing from across the massive hall!)

Eventually, with nothing to do since I'd already reorganized my purse a couple dozen times (only so many configurations you can come up with only four items)... I simply... fell asleep. Like the cleanest and primmest homeless person you'd ever seen, I laid my head down on my velvet & satin handbag and threw my enormous platform shoes up onto the bench and actually slept.

To hell with personal safety! Jill finally needed some shut-eye!!!

Woke up a few hours later, unharmed yet ornery, and actually nearly missed the first train headed to Trenton. I took a cab from the train station back to work where I had left my car, and made do with whatever I had in my gym bag which thankfully was in my trunk. I actually washed my hair in the sink at the office -- and if you've ever visited the station, you'd know what a huge feat this was since the sinks are automatic on/off. It took like twenty minutes to rinse out the shampoo.

Needless to say, next day at work sucked from so little quality sleep.

However, I decided there was no shame in being the paranoid annoying person who needs to make exact plans about where and when. Be prepared for a detailed hand-written map if you're ever meeting me out anywhere.

And, I also decided then and there and carrying forty pounds of junk in my handbag at all times is the way to go. Ya never know.