Sign of the Times

I had to go out of town to one of the three cities left in the US still not served by Southwest Airlines. I had to fly another airline. I hadn’t flown them in quite a while and was looking forward to seeing if they learned anything while they were in bankruptcy.

As we pulled up to curbside check into I felt great. Southwest had about 40 people in line at curbside check in and my carrier had 5 people in line. I was thinking to myself this just might work out. Half an hour later, the Southwest line was gone and I still had one person in front of me. This was not a good sign.

Traveling by air these days is bad enough without having to deal with surly attitudes. My bad was overweight by eleven pounds and I was directed to check in inside because he is not allowed to accept over weight baggage. I went inside and there was another long line. It was still two hours before my flight and now I was having doubts that I was going to make my flight.

When I got inside, I asked why they couldn’t handle me outside, and the man behind the counter said, “I don’t know why not. All they had to do was tell you to move some clothes from one bag to the other.”

Fortunately, the flight was delayed and I made it just as they were boarding the plane. Then the irony struck me. I was happy my flight was delayed. This was not a good sign.

The flight was an evening flight – the kind of flight where most of the passengers are business travelers. The airline used to charge for head sets to watch the movie, but now they are free. I was just beginning to have hope this would be a pleasant flight after all, and then announced the movie: “Over the Hedge.” There was not a kid on the flight, just a load of grumpy tired business men moving from point A to point B.

The bad thing about the collapse of the airline industry has been full planes. Apparently the airline industry hasn’t noticed American’s are getting bigger. So the only thing that made flying comfortable was the empty middle seats. With the fully occupied planes, the comfort is gone. This flight was no exception it was full and since I was traveling at the last minute, I was shoehorned into the dreaded center seat. As I approached my row, I knew it was going to be a tight fit because I am a big guy to begin with and the other seats were occupied by the a couple of guys that looked like linemen in the NFL. This was not a good sign.

Due to the extended check in – the long the long line in security, I was not able to stop to get a coffee for the flight as I normally did. Not that that would have helped since you can’t carry any fluids on planes any more. The flight was very turbulent. The turbulence kept the stewardesses in their seats and the drink cart in the galley. No movie, no reading, no comfort, no drinking. So I arrived at Denver parched, frustrated and exhausted.

I stressed trying to get out of the plane to make my connection as I fought the Universal law of flying that says: “The tighter your connections between flights, the further back in the cabin you will be seated and the slower the people in front of you will move as they exit the plane.”

Thank God, my connecting flight was having engine trouble. Now instead of forty minutes between flights, I now had 4 hours between flights while they scrounged up a spare plane. I was happy on another level about this delay. Prior to this I had serious concerns about the airline’s ability to get the baggage to my connecting flight on time. Now I am confident they will. I am happy my flight is going to be seriously late? This is not a good sign.

I use my time wisely. I return my calls. I respond to my email. I eat a late dinner. Now I have to kill three hours and thirty minutes.

I am a little giddy as I get on the plane because the computer system screwed up and assigned me an aisle seat. I should have known this was just the Universe’s way of setting me up for the fall one last time on this flight. After take off, I reached up to turn on my reading light…and it didn’t work.

The reading lights for everyone else worked. I realized I was being tested at the moment: What did I want more: to read my book, which would now require me to trade seats with the person in the middle seat; or to sit on the aisle? It wasn’t even close. I decided I would continue to sit on the aisle. Having made the decision not to move, I thought I would try to take a nap for the remaining three hours of the flight to Miami, but the Universe wasn’t finished with me yet… the seat refused to recline. This is not a good sign.

As I sit upright in the dark, I wonder if I can sue Southwest for not flying to Miami from Reno, and decide if I ever tried to do that I’d be condemned to a lifetime of “C” boarding passes (Southwest fliers will know what I am talking about.), so I let the urge pass and suffer in silence, upright, in the dark, for the next three hours.

I got to Miami. It was dark. It was late. It was raining. I was looking for some kind of sign that all my suffering was going to be worth it. That my trip under such adverse conditions was going to be a meaningful experience. It was going to be an enlightening experience. I was looking for a way to make lemonade out of my experience so far as I loaded my bags into the rental car.

At that point a homeless person wandering through the parking lot asked me for money, and when I refused, he opened his zipper and peed at me and said “Welcome to Miami asshole.” This was not a good sign.