Black cat gonna cross my path; no reason to run and hide

Today is the first of 2 consecutive months with Friday the 13^th's this year (a cool little function of 28 being divisible by 7--i.e. there's exactly 4 full weeks in a 28-day February...). I spent part of today arranging travel to Cleveland, Mississippi (it's in the center of the picture at right).

I'm heading to Cleveland, MS later this month for a friend's wedding. When I went to book my flight there (after finding out it was a 16-hour drive from FtL), I initially tried to fly right into Cleveland--hoping that would work. So I typed in "Cleveland, Mississippi", hit enter, and Travelocity brought up a whole bunch of flight options... to Cleveland, Ohio.

After checking with my friend, I then started investigating flights to Jackson, Memphis and Greenville (which is only like 20 miles from Cleveland). Through some bizarreness, flying up Saturday and back Sunday ended up cheaper than flying up Friday night (not sure why). Likewise, Jackson proved much cheaper (about $150) as the fly-in city, compared to Memphis ($330) or Greenville ($630).

Alas, there was a slight snag with the Jackson flight: the 2 return options were either:

• Jackson-->Memphis-->Houston-->Fort Lauderdale
• Jackson-->Houston-->Memphis-->Fort Lauderdale

(and both were leaving around noon, and getting into FtL around 11:30 p.m.--the fun)

As I was pondering whether I really wanted to take a tour-de-airports, I thought: maybe I could just fly into Jackson and out of Memphis... which I could do for twice the price (makes sense, right? Fly less, and pay more...). I also didn't understand why the reservation didn't just park me in Houston/Memphis for longer, and wait for the later FtL flight at that airport (but that may have had to do with some default settings about how long on can be laid-over in an airport). In any case, I decided to go with one of the tours flights, only to have it be gone by the time I went to book. The fare then jumped up to $250, at which point I noticed that Little Rock appears to about the same distance....

So, I'm now flying into Little Rock (via Memphis) and back. I would really prefer to just fly in and out of Memphis, but if the airlines want me to fly more to pay less, so be it: I can be a willing captive for a bit longer. I just don't completely understand it.

You got a bad, bad reputation
Gonna hang down your head and cry
You got bad, bad luck