I’ve been lucky with most of my flights this year. There have been no horrendous delays, no lost luggage, no sitting on a tarmac. Air karma was on my side.

Until today. An innocuous alert from Delta last week announced that there were “schedule changes.” Careful reading showed that our flight back from Arizona no longer took off at 12:10 p.m. – instead it was moved forward more than four hours to 7:50 a.m. Yet our evening flight back to DCA remained the same.

Sooo, seven hour layover in Memphis….I finished my work. I finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (recommended). I watched six episodes of 30 Rock on Hulu. I spent the $10 in meal vouchers given to me by the sympathetic gate attendant. I composed cranky letters to Delta in my head.

Karma, officially broken.