Random Commuter Observation (TM)

NPR, as one might expect, ran a nooz blurb this morning on the airport gridlock lingering in the Northeast after the recent Snowpocalypse.

In the piece, the reporter interviewed a woman who got caught in NYC with her family on the way back from a vacation somewhere in the Caribbean. Their final destination was Dee Cee, a mere hour away by air and maybe four by car. The bulk of the interview concerned the fact that these people had been loitering around JKF or La Guardia (whichever it was) for hours and days and still had not even been provided any information about when they might get a flight home.

The reporter finished up by noting the family would be perfectly happy to use any other means to get to Dee Cee - rail, bus, car.....so long as the airline spotted them the funds for it. (The story did not suggest one way or the other whether the family could afford the extra expense, but I would guess that if they were jetting back from an island vacation, they probably could manage it.)

It struck me that the question has to be asked: At what point do you simply give it up and make your own way, renting the car (or whatever) yourself and just getting the hell home and worrying about whether you'll get reimbursed later on?