Mamarati

What a bizarre situation that was. Everyone was delayed at Newark. Some folks were in the terminal and had been delayed or canceled several times already. I was just about to get on the plane and there was a woman crying about not being able to make it to some meeting that was really important. I couldn’t really identify because I’ve never considered a meeting such an important thing, but I felt her pain.

The gatekeeper said that there was another delay, adding another 40 minutes or so to the time it would be to board and then she said they were overbooked and that unless someone with “flexible travel plans” would give up their seat, people would get bumped. Moans, groans and sighs filled the air as everyone contemplated the lottery situation at hand… (Would it be me who gets bumped?)

I decided to go ahead and take the $300 voucher since there’s a conference in July that I’d love to make it to, but with this being my last year of school, finances are tight. My last semester is going to cost over $6,000 alone. I’d also like to fly to Maine for graduation, so I bit the bullet and volunteered. This time I could hear sighs of relief and whispers of, “Is she taking it? Oh Good.” What the hell, you know? I didn’t have another flight to catch and no one picking me up had to be at work the next day.

I went to the American Bandstand restaurant for some potato soup that had carrots in it (later someone told me that was a Northern thing) and the worst artichoke / spinach dip I’ve ever had. No bueno. I started to get out my laptop and mess around on the Internet for a while, but then I realized that I’d packed my power adapter in my checked bag. Also on the checked bag were the books I needed to study for my midterm and finish anything that’s due this week for school. It was all on its way to DFW. Joy.

I had a guaranteed seat on the 7:40 flight, however, so all was good.

I went to the bathroom 6 times. During one stop, a woman was losing her shit completely. It was her birthday. Her flights had been canceled and delayed since yesterday and it was still going on. She just came in to go to the bathroom and dropped her cell phone in the toilet. She didn’t know anyone’s numbers by heart and couldn’t call them to pick her up. She was crying and completely going nuts. She was slipping around in her slick flip flops on the wet floor and pulled her pony tail holder out of her hair just so she could throw it down and say, “Thanks a lot American Airlines, I just fucking love you!” I didn’t know what to do.

When I got back to my seat I realized that maybe if she’d saved any of the numbers on her SIM card then she could plop it into my phone and call someone. I made trip numero 7 to the bathroom to see if she was still there, but she wasn’t. I came out and looked for her but couldn’t find her anywhere. Oh well. Good intentions.

I got back to the gate area to find that the flight between the 2:20 and the 7:40 had been canceled. More unhappy campers. Also, since the flight before was overbooked, they didn’t bump anyone but the folks on standby didn’t get on it or the newly canceled flight either. 7:40 was still on time, so I went and got a book to pass the time (Naked by David Sedaris who is one of my favorite authors.) I got bored and napped a little. Met some folks sitting around me and started cutting up and having a good time. The flight got delayed 20 minutes at a time for several hours until finally we boarded. Not at 7:40, but at nearly 11pm.

There was a guy sitting next to me and he was funny and chatty. He’d adopted a baby from Russia some years before so we talked about that process for a long time. I’d just had some tea so was cracked out. He didn’t seem to want to sleep, either. The lights went out and the rest of the plane was silent. Everyone was sleeping except he and I. We had the flight attendants to ourselves, so we proceeded to get plastered on screwdrivers.

I landed at 2am where boyfriend and Jacob were waiting to get me. I knew Jacob wouldn’t sleep. He loves and misses me, of course, but he really just loves going to the airport. A kid after my own heart, I suppose. Always something new and different at the airport. Plus there’s nothing like meeting people and sharing your most intimate details with them and then never seeing them again. There’s something liberating in that.

I almost fell asleep in the car on the way home. I don’t remember the part between pulling up in the driveway and me getting into my own bed (which is the hallmark of the end of a long trip, or in my case, two trips that seemed like one long one.) I only vaguely remember looking at the house and thinking about what a mess it was.

I woke up and called American to see where my luggage was and they said it was out for delivery and should come in the afternoon. I called again at 6pm and they said it should be there shortly. Finally, a guy that looked much like Uncle Jesse on the Dukes of Hazard with a stubby, nasty cigar hanging out of his mouth showed up in a minivan and gave me my bag. It smelled like he’d been penned up in there all day smoking that thing. It’s going to take untold amounts of Febreeze to get the smell out of that suitcase.

It’s always something, isn’t it?