I Narrowly Escaped the Atlanta Airport Blackout: Cannot Think Of A Situation In Which I'd Lose My Mind Faster

ATLANTA -- An underground fire caused a complete power outage Sunday afternoon at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, resulting in thousands of canceled flights at the world's busiest terminal and affecting travelers worldwide. Full timeline here.

I narrowly escaped the blackout at Atlanta airport yesterday, and I think it's maybe the luckiest thing to ever happen to me. I'm never the one who this happens to. In fact, yesterday I was realizing that I hadn't had a delay in a while, and I was overdue. I've been flying a lot in the past few weeks, and needless to say I'm close to losing my mind. I was dreading a delay because I knew that's probably all it would take to push me over the edge.

Thus, I'd argue that the stars aligning and making sure my plane got off half an hour before all of this shit went down was not only good news for me, but also everybody else in the airport. I'll be honest, if I'd been stranded in that airport I would have lost my fucking mind. I'm not talking start-weeping-lose-your-mind. I'm talking forget-the-social-contract-lose-your-mind. I would have gone FULL lord of the flies out there.

You'd have poor folks checking their smartphones for flight updates, and I'd be leading my band of feral travelers on a pilgrimage of pillaging and conquest. I'd have been king of the Atlanta airport, and I would not have been a benevolent ruler. I would have given it an hour before I was running around on four legs howling at the finally dim fluorescents. I'd have taken all of my rage at the fact that I paid nine bucks for A SLICE OF PIZZA AND A SODA out on the remnants of society. They would have done a CBS special on me, I'd be the subject of the next Making A Murderer, and scientists would have studied my brain for years to come, all in the hope of figuring out what went wrong, and how.

Airports, that's what happened. Airports.