My daughter invited me to South Bend for the weekend as she had an extra ticket to the Michigan/Notre Dame game. Never mind that I was her default person, I had enough miles for a ticket and she was paying for everything else.
We were scheduled to arrive Friday evening around the same time even though we were coming from different destinations. When I landed in Atlanta there was a distress text saying she was grounded in Chicago due to weather. We had a few minutes to consider alternatives as the next flight out was iffy. The storm was gathering strength and now my trip was delayed due to the same threat.
Passengers on the small plane were getting edgy as they waited, not wanting to miss out on the pre-game activities, and to make matters worse ,the seats were oversold. The gate agents were looking for volunteers and started their bid at $500. There were no takers. At $800 I decided to put my name on the list if they could get me there later that night.
I was not overly concerned about my tardiness because by this time my daughter was convinced no planes would leave O’Hare and decided on a bus.
My flight was ready to load and they needed one more volunteer. Money was being thrown around and no one was interested. Perhaps a mute point as four passengers were not in the boarding area. I grabbed my bag and headed to the bridge when those tardy four arrived, out of breath and demanding to be allowed on the plane. I sat down again along with another passenger who was denied embarkation because he didn’t have a seat assignment.
The plane departed and the agent came by with a check for $1300! I stared in disbelief and said, “look I agreed to do this for $800”.
He smiled and said “have a good day”.
I took off a few hours later and  bumped into my daughter just as she had picked up the keys to our rental car.