After speaking at a conference in Buffalo, I innocently got on a flight to NYC. And here I sit and sit and sit. It's 2 a.m.

Every now and then a voice comes blaring over the loudspeaker, "Keep your luggage with you at all times. Do not tamper with the luggage of someone you don't know. Report any unattended luggage to the airport authorities, etc."

My current misery on USAir flight 3993 from La Guardia to Norfolk sets a new all-time standard in my pantheon of torture for a modern-day road warrior. I'm sitting here alongside a few other bedraggled fellow flyers. The humane thing to do would have been to just cancel the flight and send us to a hotel. The flight was scheduled to leave at 8 pm getting in at 9:36. Instead it was:

Rescheduled for 9:30 pm

Rescheduled for 10:30 pm

Rescheduled for 11:15 pm

Rescheduled for 12:30 am

Rescheduled for 1:30 am

Rescheduled for 2:30 am

Rescheduled for 2:45 am, which if it happens, will put us into Norfolk at 4:21 am!

I'm not sure how perfectly normal people turn into terrorists, but I think it starts small and progresses like this night has until things that you used to think were crazy now seem debatable.

The gate agent just showed up and we the weary waiters broke into hysterical cheers. We're boarding now...