August 25, 2007
The late great comedian Bob Hope once joked, “I love flying. I have been to almost as many places as my luggage.”
Me, too, but I still love to fly.
I love flying for one primary reason--it gets me there fast even though the experience may turn out to be an ordeal. Let us be honest. Some trips are more than an ordeal; they cause frustration, difficulty, affliction, and even distress, especially if I don’t get my coffee.
My most recent trip is a case in point.
As usual, I try to arrive at the airport with just enough to time to snatch a coffee and bagel before an early flight. On the trip in question I noticed people ahead of me walking away empty handed from the coffee shop. When my turn came and I ordered a coffee and a bagel, I found out why.
The bored and sleepy coffee shop attendant said, “We don’t have any coffee.”
“What no coffee! Isn’t this a coffee shop,” I asked incredulously?
“Yes,” she replied, “But we are out of filters. We can’t make coffee this morning.”
I tried not to scream, “Out of filters. How can you be out of filters in a coffee shop?” I restrained myself and changed my order.
“Ok, how about a small bottle of water (the large is too much to drink before going through security) and a bagel?”
The young woman replied, “All we have is the big bottle of water, no small, and those bagels there are all we have left.”
Resigned to my fate I said, “Fine, I’ll take the big water and a honey-wheat bagel, no cream cheese.”
“Sorry,” she said. “You can’t have those bagels. They are for display only. All we have left that are edible are the jalapeno cheese or fudge nut raspberry.”
She has to be kidding I thought, but I really wanted to scream,” What do you mean I can’t have those wheat ones. They look fine to me. You are telling me you don’t have any bagels either. The sign says coffee and bagel shop. What kind of a business is this anyway?”
Keep in mind I had not had enough coffee yet.
Amazingly, I kept my mouth shut and shuffled dutifully and dejectedly toward the security checkpoint without water (too heavy and too big a bottle), without a bagel (too strange selection for me this early in the morning), and without coffee (pretty much a necessity of life in my way of thinking).
The trip only gets better.
Security went fine, but as I bent over to slip into my shoes, I was knocked to the floor by some blow to my head and shoulder.
Turns out the man ahead of me, who had to be at least 7-feet tall, lost control of his computer bag. The strap chose that moment in time to break and send the thing crashing from its high altitude onto my head and glancing off my arm. Of course, the bag would never have hit me if I had not bent over to get back into my shoes at that exact moment.
To make a long story short, he was very apologetic. I moved on and got into the boarding line.
A very sweet older lady approached me about then, and said, “Dear, do you know you are bleeding?”
She told me not to worry because she was a retired schoolteacher (bless her) and she always carried first-aid supplies due to years of taking care of children. She helped bandage my arm that was indeed bleeding so much so that the blood was making a small pool on the floor.
If I had been in a basketball game, they would have benched me immediately until the bleeding stopped!
However, boarding was about to start. Some folks in line looked at me with disapproval as though I had some dangerous disease. I wanted to shout again only this time, “Good grief, I just got hit by a computer case, that’s all. People, I promise I am not contagious.”
Mostly I tried not to make eye contact with anyone.v
By now, my best hope for an uneventful flight was to find an aisle seat so I could easily get to the bathroom if needed to control the bleeding from my aforementioned injured forearm. Certainly, I didn’t want to be on the evening news for causing an in-flight disruption.
I sincerely hoped some kind person would eventually sit next to me, one who did not mind an occasional bleeding distraction. I still did not make eye contact. I piled my carryon in the middle seat and kept my eyes down.
Thankfully a college student who reminded me of my own boys asked if he could take the window seat. He, too, all knowingly piled his things in the middle seat.
We were both hoping no one would sit there, but the flight was full. Near the end of the parade of boarders, I carefully looked up at just the right moment and chose who I hoped would be the perfect middle seat flight companion. Then, I made eye contact, whereupon he asked immediately if that seat was taken!
For him, no of course it was not taken.
Our unspoken plan worked, and the college student and I had a very enjoyable flight with the middle seat guy, a studious fellow who only wanted to read and not chatter incessantly. Might be onto something here about how to find pleasant seat companions; it is all about the eye contact!
Despite all this, I still love to fly.
As Amelia Earhart once noted, “Flying may not be all plain sailing, but the fun of it is worth the price.”
Did she actually say the “fun of it”? Well, let’s give her a pass since she said that so long ago.
