london calling, united not answering

After months of meticulous planning, our trip got off to a rocky start Friday evening when our plane was initially delayed 20 minutes for a "thorough mechanical inspection." Hmm...thorough mechanical inspection, at the last minute - that's gotta be great news right? So they let us board, we push back from the gate, they announce that even though we're a little delayed this time is built into the schedule and we'll still arrive at approximately 11:15 London time. Except 10 min later the captain comes on and starts with "Well folks, I hate to say it but I have some bad news." Never a good preface by someone flying a plane. Apparently the main hydraulic cylinder, which apparently is critical to flying an airplane, was broken, then fixed with a new computer chip (thus the initial thorough mechanical inspection) and was now broke again. So we were pulling back to the gate, but he wanted us to stay on the plane until the mechanics gave him an update on how long it would take to fix the issue. About an hour later, we were told this plane was being put out of service and they were getting a new plane from the hangar for us. Sounds simple, and we were initially scheduled to take off at 11:15 or so. One thing leads to another, we're scheduled for an 11:59 departure and we start boarding at 11:40 (obviously not leaving at 11:59). Having been up since 4am in an attempt to get myself on more of a London time schedule, I was exhausted and promptly fell asleep when I got in my seat. I woke up sweating at 12:40 and we had been pushed back from the gate, but hadn't gone anywhere. We finally took off at about 1am, and the captain was kind enough to give us drinks on the house. Further evidence we're old: we declined the free drinks and chose to sleep instead, having resigned ourselves to staying in Heathrow the entire layover.

United 1, Monkeys 0.