Well... We did indeed take off about 15 minutes, and we were fine until were over North Carolina, and the captain announced that due to the heavy air traffic flying in and out of LGA, we would probably have to circle for a bit. And I realized that the sun was "shifting" from one side of the plane to the other, well... I guess we had indeed started circling.
Once we got closer to LGA, we were informed that there might be one more brief delay, but then we got the go ahead to come in for the landing. We landed, then the plane made its way to the gate. We pulled up to the gate, then.. Well, we almost made it to the gate. Apparently, one of the signal lights on the gateway was not working properly. So, after that initial "DING" when everyone started to get out of their seats and grab their luggage, the captain come on and said that we were about four feet short of the gate, and that we would have to sit down again until he moved us closer to the gate. Of course, since he thought he had the go ahead to disembark, he had turned off the engine, so that took a minute or two to start up again. Then the plane foot-ed ahead a couple more feet, and then the "DING", and then we all started to get up again. Well...
It seemed that more than just the signal light on the gateway was broken. The gate itself was too. While looking outside my window, I started to see a couple of Delta coaches pull up to the plane. Hmm... And sure enough, about five minutes later, the captain announced that we would be disembarking from the rear of the plane. And since I was sitting in Row 29 (out of 32), well... I was one of the first people off the plane.

And by the time I made my way to Baggage Claim, my bag had just appeared on the carousel.

Thankfully, no one on the plane seemed to have any connecting flights to make - or at least none that were going to be close to call due to the delays. And the captain had a good sense of humor about the whole situation, and there were lots of people laughing and giggling - myself included - throughout all the "gate trauma". In case...
I'm home.
