Fun travel game:  Try to figure out which of these scenarios are too absurd to be true; they take place on a flight that we're hoping would get us to our 8:30pm connection from Philadelphia to Lisbon.

6:05  After taxiing to the runway, we're informed of an air traffic delay that is going to keep our plane in line on the tarmac for 40 minutes.

7:15  We're told we're flying a holding pattern outside Philly.  "Philadelphia is shut down, due to an incident on the runway.  Hopefully they'll be letting us in to land soon."

7:30  "Ladies and gentlemen, Philadelphia is still shut down to arrivals, and we don't have enough fuel to keep circling and waiting for news.  At this time we're going to turn around and head back to Pittsburgh.  Then, if the airport reopens, after we've refueled we may try again to get you out to Philadelphia."

7:45  Our flight attendants hand us boarding passes for a flight to London Heathrow leaving Philadelphia at 9:50pm.

7:50  "Last call to deplane here in Pittsburgh, for anyone who prefers to spend the night in Pittsburgh."

8:10  "Folks, the lavatories are going to be out of service from this point on.  If you need to go, I'm afraid you're going to have to hold it for the next hour until you're at a real bathroom in Philadelphia.  The vacuum pump for the toilets has stopped working, so we are now locking the lavatories."

8:20  "So we need to have some paperwork approved regarding the malfunctioning lavatories, and we won't be cleared to leave the ground here in Pittsburgh until that's handled."

8:40  "No, ma'am, we can no longer let anyone off.  The gate agent handed us the paperwork and told us to close the door and head to Philadelphia."

9:40 The gate agents in Philadelphia hand us passes for Monika Skonieczny and Gary Shuttlesworth to fly to London Heathrow the following night at 9:50.

9:55 We hear from other passengers at Customer Service that there was certainly no airport-wide shutdown and that other flights were landing around the same time as our delayed one was supposed to.