After my first year of college, I decided to stay in the magnificent town of Moscow, Idaho. I was overjoyed to spend my summer working in the Palouse with some of my closest friends. All of this changed with one piece of mail in March.

I was summoned for jury duty in Boise.

My first reaction was that I was excited to head home and see my family. My second thought was "Crap. I have to sit in a courtroom all week." Last by not least, I began to panic about how I would get home. Because I am a poor college student, I do not currently own a car. I did not think it was very fair that my parents had to drive up to Moscow to rescue me, and I was not going to ask my fabulous friends to drive me to Boise.... Again.

Thus ensued the hyperventilating.

Because I did not want to go to jail or be fined for not showing up for jury duty, I again went through my options. Luckily, I have an amazing uncle who happens to be a flight attendant for Alaska Airlines.

Uncle Joel gets guest plane passes, where we only pay a small fee and taxes. Through some planning, my parents arranged plane tickets for me through Joel. I was going to fly from Pullman, to Seattle, to Boise. Shout out to Uncle Joel, love ya!

There is only one problem with this glorious deal: the tickets are standby.

If you have never flown standby or even heard of it, you lucky duck. Standby flights are flights that are basically unconfirmed seats. You stand at the terminal of your flight and essentially wait until your name is called to have a seat. This is perfect for smaller airports, because they are always likely to have tons of seats on whichever flight you chose.

And so the story begins...

As soon as I got the the Pullman airport (which is the smallest airport in the world), I walked up to the friendly Alaska Airlines agent and gave her my name. She then looked up at me and asked, "window or aisle?" It was that simple. I did not have to wait in line and I did not have a care in the world (except for security; I am not a criminal, but it still makes me jumpy).

Once I was in the air, I was as happy as a clam. I was quite optimistic that I would be on the five P.M. flight from Seattle to Boise. This was my thought, even though I knew I was low priority on the flight home of three people for two seats, but I like to think everything works out for the best.

After we landed in Seattle, I went to my next terminal and my heart sank. I had flown standby before and always made it on the flight I needed, but flight 2140 broke my streak. Even though there were only two seats and three of us, I figured someone would miss their flight and I would fly home. But noooo, a pilot, who has uber priority over me, walked up and took the newly opened seat. I had missed the flight just by one person.

This ensued a waiting game and hyperventilating, once again.

Because I missed the flight I wanted, I now had to sit around the Seattle International Airport and wait to fly home. It is the worst feeling of being tired, hungry and just waiting to see if you can go home to be with your family that night. You could make it on a flight to Boise. You might have to fly to Portland then to Boise. You might have to stay the night. You might never leave. You do not know.

My luck that night was equivalent to my luck with flight 2140. Since it was a Friday night, most flight crews wanted to head home for the weekend, which meant I was not (flight crews have priority over civilians like you and me). After being bumped off my third flight of the night, and the customer service lady being far from nice to me, I finally sat down at a terminal and cried. I tried to hide my tears, but it was a very stressful situation. I just wanted to be home.

After my baby meltdown, I think the world felt sorry for me and I was finally on my way home. At eight P.M., my name was called and I had a ticket in my hand. I was going home. I refused to believe it until I was officially sitting in seat 1C, at least 25,000 feet in the air and airline pretzels in my hand. That was when I finally could breathe normally.

I arrived in Boise at exactly 11 P.M. The original plan was I would be picked up at seven P.M., so it was not too bad. At least I did not have to spend the night.

Take my experience as a lesson: standby seems cool, until you are crying, tired, hungry and alone in an international airport. Yes, it is a super cheap way to fly with tickets ranging anywhere from $25 to $100, but I think your mental health is worth more than that.