[Shellie]

My college orientation got screwed up and I got the last date available rather than one of the first. Because of that, I would be 1 hour too late to be able to take the cheap charter flight to Europe my mom wanted for me for my high school graduation.

So instead, she bought me a plane ticket to Rome via Paris on a regular flight. It was way more expensive than she wanted to pay- $1500. We begged the university to change our orientation, but they said there was nothing they could do.

One week before the orientation, we got a call from a lady at the scheduling office. She said another student had called in sick and she had remembered how desperately we wanted to have an earlier date. We grabbed it, and immediately my mom called the travel agency to see if she could swap the tickets for the charter flight. The travel agent answered- and told us she was on her way out the door and had all the computers off but would do it anyway. Fortunately we got to return the ticket and get the last charter seat and saved $700.

When I got off the train to my friend's home, I was instantly swarmed by a dozen people, among them a very animated Zia who kept flinging her arms around and shouting "boom". Once all the excitement and confusion went down I discovered that a plane had blown up near New York City and that they were afraid it was the one I was on.

It wasn't until I got back home that I learned that the plane that blew up, TWA 800, was the one I originally had a ticket for. Because one kid got sick at the last minute, one secretary remembered us, and one travel agent answered the phone on her way out the door I AM ALIVE.

Over twelve years later I am still trying to figure out why?