 You know how
some people are unflappable? I'm not one of them. I'm very flappable. I'm
flapping all over the place thanks to incidents that occurred during my sexy
hot trip to Southern California, which turned out to be a one-day jaunt to the
teeming and ever-busy Chicago O'Hare airport and back again to Cleveland, which
I was trying to get out of for a fun, relaxing trip to sexy hot Southern
California, if you follow me so far.
I had scheduled a
trip to Los Angeles, to stay four nights and three full days. This was a rare
and exciting thing for me, not to mention expensive. I left my home early on
May 20, hopping on the rapid. The ride to the airport was fine; indeed, it was
the best part of the trip. I gazed at the glum scenery and felt a wave of
affectionate condescension. "I'm going to be on the beach of the Pacific Ocean tomorrow," I thought, "and
these people are going to be grousing around on Triskett Road, which is too
bad. Heh, Heh."
I got to the
airport and was informed my flight would leave an hour late. No problemo! I had
a long layover in Chicago anyway. I boarded the plane, and noted that these
babies were beginning to look more and more like buses everyday. The flight was
uneventful, which is usually best. We did have to wait several minutes for
another plane to clear our gate, but I had time to kill, so I smiled pleasantly
at the old woman sitting next to me and said "Oh well, I've got three hours
here anyway." And she laughed oddly and said something I didn't quite catch.
She seemed nervous, but I thought she might have been that from flying. Now I
think she was experiencing "bad vibes" She was a smart woman.
I am a
semi-aware person, and I knew Chicago's O'Hare Airport was a hub and busy. But
when I got off that airplane I wasn't prepared for the incredible, teeming
horde of people there. I know this sounds naïve, but I was truly shocked. This
place made a Browns game at the Stadium look like a day at the suburban
library. And here was the joker in the deck: there had been thunderstorms that
morning, and flights were being delayed. Everything was backed up. I was
getting a very real sense of hysteria from the people around me. I thought,
"They'll iron this out, I'll be delayed a few hours, I'll just go a little
later to a swinging cantina in Southern California with my friend." I still had
two hours, so I waited near the TV monitors to find out where my gate was and
when I'd be departing.
I waited, read
the Tribune, twiddled my thumbs.
There was always a mass of people around the monitors, peering anxiously up at
them, blocking the aisles. I checked for my gate every fifteen minutes or so,
and time began to run short. Finally, I looked up and next to my flight number
I saw the word canceled.
Being an
infrequent traveler, my first reaction to this was disbelief, then an interior
wail. "What am I gonna do? What am I
gonna do?" Another fellow was in the same boat, and we went to the next
gate with another flight to L.A. The besieged agent at the gate told a young
soldier that there was a waiting list of 160 people for the flight, which was
due to leave in twenty minutes. I did not see this as a hopeful sign.
You must
remember that there were thousands of people with my problem or variations thereof
(missed connections, ruinous delays) and the confusion was epidemic. The
customer service counter was like a prayer meeting: 500 howling travelers and
an agent trying to calm them with a microphone and a suave, Continental accent.
I tottered around aimlessly for a while, close to despair. There were masses of
angry people at every conceivable source of information. I finally followed the
Continental-accented agent's advice and called reservations on a free phone.
All flights to
L.A. were standby for the rest of the day, the women said, and here is where I
really didn't know what to do. I couldn't see waiting around in that madhouse
for a flight that might never materialize, so I decided to go home, an 8 p.m.
flight back to Cleveland. That was five hours away, but it was better than
staying over and cutting my trip in half with all the travel time.
Now I had to
fetch my luggage and call me friend, whose phone number I had conveniently
forgotten to bring. I talked to a fellow who assured me that they'd find my bag
and put it by the claims office, and I thought that item was handled. "You
might want to get a Coke or some coffee," he said. "This might take thirty or
forty minutes." I spent that time tracking down my friend's office number,
calling her with the news, and getting my ticket back to Cleveland. I messed
around at the ticket counter with a half-assed refund form just to get my name
in the system, and listened to other tales of woe. Everyone, to coin a phrase,
was getting screwed.
I went back down
to baggage claim, and as you well know didn't see my bag. I put in another
claim. "Relax," the beach boy agent said. "The claim is in. The bag will be by
the window." There were many other "relaxed" people there, each with a worse
story than the last. I waited in the lounge a few yards from the claim area,
and kept checking. Three hours later, at 7 p.m.,
one hour before my flight was to leave for Cleveland,
I went back to the office and waited for the beach boy agent again. He punched
in my name and claim number and said, "Yup, we sent your bag on to L.A." I felt
a strange kind of perverse joy, grinned and said, "Ya did, huh?!" He said
"Sorry about that," and I started laughing.
Anyway, I didn't
have to worry about carting around my clothes, and I awaited my flight back
home. It boarded an hour and a half late, and we sat on the runway for another
two hours waiting for the pilots to arrive, a new one on me. Then we waited for
a new crew, then for clearance. The 8 p.m. flight left Chicago at midnight and
arrived at Cleveland at 2 am
One good thing.
In the spirit of the Great Indoors, not once did I set foot outside during my
entire trip to Southern California.
|
Quirkee Voices 
(0 vote)
