If you do anything often in your life, at some point you will start to experience some very strange things, even if they’re mildly strange. In my case, mildly doesn’t quite fit.
As some of you know, I’m traveling a lot these days because of my consulting business, and that means I’m flying. This week, I had some adventures that concerned being in airports that I thought I would share with you in a story form. I do that because one, I think stories are more interesting, and two, because it’s going to be long, and three, because it’s true. And it includes a video; what more could you ask for?
The story begins at the airport in my home area of Syracuse New York. I had my boarding pass with me, and I had qualified for what’s called a TSA pre-check, which means I got to go through a special short line, got to keep my shoes and belts on, and if I didn’t have any metal in my jacket I would have had to take that off either. However, since I did have some metal items in my pockets. I decided it was smart to go ahead and put my jacket on top in one of those bins.
I walked through just fine, get my stuff and head towards my gate. I’m pretty early, and there’s a new restaurant over by my gate so I decide to stop in and get something to eat. I recognize the woman working there as a lady who used to work at a restaurant across the street from where I live that closed and became a Moe’s Southwest Grill. It turns out that, because the restaurant had just recently opened, they had very few items that were on their menu. Last, I had to order something that I really didn’t want, but I was a little bit hungry so I decided to give it a shot.
At some point I decided to check my boarding pass just to make sure I had the time I was supposed to get on the plane accurate in my mind. At that point I realized I didn’t have my boarding pass anymore, and that I must have left it at the front when I went through the check.
I told the waitress I would be right back, and I walked back over there to see if anyone had turned in a boarding pass. I asked one of the police officers for some assistance, she asked one of the TSA people about it, and the woman says that all I have to do is go to one of the airlines stations and they would print a new boarding pass for me.
I go back to the restaurant, pay the bill, get my stuff and go to get my boarding pass. While I’m pulling out my ID, which is my drivers license, the lady tells me I don’t need it because my name is already on file. However, it’s a good thing I did check because it turns out I didn’t have my drivers license either. Then I remembered that as soon as I got through check out I had put my license and boarding pass in the bin and then I put my coat on top of it and totally forgot about those items.
The lady let me leave my bags behind the counter, and I rushed back to the checkout line to see if anyone had turned in my license. Of course no one had, so for the next 15 minutes everyone started looking for my drivers license, which I wasn’t allowed to do because I had are gone by that area.
Lucky for me, because not that many people qualify for the pre-check one of the police officers found my license and my other boarding pass. Talk about a lucky break, because I’m not sure I would’ve gone on the plane without my drivers license. It certainly would have been a miserable two weeks out of town without it since they would not let me rent a car.
All goes well from that point as I get on the first plane which will fly me from Syracuse to Washington DC, Reagan Airport. When I get to turn my phone on after the plane lands, I noticed that I had both a phone call and an e-mail. Check the e-mail first to discover that my plane has been delayed an hour for the next trip because of maintenance. That doesn’t seem like such a big deal, so I chill with a candy bar and wait that extra bit of time before I had my gate. Then there’s another hour of waiting, as against maintenance must have needed more time to get things fixed.
At this point the video’s going to take over for a short bit, and I hope you watch it because it tells what happens between what’s above and what’s coming after the video. Suspense! Lol
http://youtu.be/iquvSRZ7x3g
I hope you watched the video because now we resume the rest of the story. For most people, what’s above would have been the end of it all, but you know by now that normal things aren’t part of my life.
I had met someone who’d been on my flight that was canceled named Susie. It was great because we kept each other alert all night and that made the entire thing more palatable to deal with. And she turned out to be a prominent person for part of the rest of this story.
We moved back to the gate area about 7:30 in the morning, because they won’t let you stay in the gate area if there are no planes expected to be leaving during a period of time. We sat in an area where there were more seats for a bit of comfort and quiet, an area I like because I like to people watch and normally talk about people in my mind because, well, some folks dress in mysterious ways when they travel. It was nice having someone to talk to about these folks, which might seem mean but we were talking low and we were punchy. By that time she’s been in the airport for more than 16 hours and I hadn’t slept in about 22 hours.
Suddenly there’s this screaming coming from behind us somewhere. We look back and I don’t see anything but Susie does. Then we see this older man walking away and some young woman, who we determined had to be his adult daughter, but disturbed in some way, running after him and hitting him… and not lightly. She was screaming something but we had no idea what it was.
I turned away for a minute and Susie says “She just hit that guy in the red shirt in the back of the head.” Sure enough, I look over and this guy who’d been sitting in a Gordon Biersch restaurant on a stool in a red shirt is looking over his shoulder at this woman, but she wasn’t paying him any attention.
The woman is still screaming and her father has stopped and is trying to hold her, but he’s fighting a losing battle. Now we hear all sorts of people calling for the police and blowing whistles and I’m thinking someone needs to be taken down.
Someone is, and in the annals of lessons one shouldn’t need to be taught, she turns around and slugs this guy in the red shirt in the back of the head again because the fool (I’m sure you’ll agree) had turned back around and had started eating his breakfast again. This time it was hard enough to knock him off the stool and onto the ground because the lesson he didn’t learn that almost everyone else would have learned the first time is you never turn your back on a crazy person who’s screaming and has already hit you. As he learned, hopefully for good, you could find yourself on the floor.
What came next was strange, as if we hadn’t had enough strange so far. The father pulls out a chair and is able to get this woman to sit down. She sits down, begins staring out somewhere, and starts saying over and over, very loudly, “Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom…” Not screaming, not chanting, just saying it loud enough for everyone in the area to hear, kind of monotone, and it’s the only thing I understood her saying all morning.
Having enough weirdness for one day, Susie and I decide to go over to the gate where we’d be catching the plane, which meant we kind of had to walk by this woman, who was still sitting in the chair and was now rocking. The police were talking to the guy in the red shirt, who could only say he was popped in the head twice because he never saw anything, and a couple other cops were standing behind her.
As we’re walking by this woman, she lets out this blood curdling scream and crying as if she’s in great distress, then immediately follows it with one of those laughs you often associate with evil geniuses in bad horror movies. Based on everything else that happened, I’m not sure saying it was the strangest thing is appropriate here.
About 25 minutes later, as we’re sitting in the area of our gate, we see the family walking by, the father luckily no worse for wear, the mother making her first appearance, and this young lady, all of them pulling bags behind them, but she’s muttering something to herself, loud enough to be heard but not loud enough to understand, followed by two police folks and another one on a Segway.
After all that normalcy came back, I got on my plane on time, got to my destination on time, drove to the hotel, cleaned up and went to work. In the video I said I was thinking about not going, but not only would I not get paid but I’d have had to pay for two nights of my hotel bill and that didn’t seem fiscally intelligent. And now, back to the dull and boring parts of my life once more… yeah, right!
You just can’t make this stuff up. 🙂
No, you cannot make these kind of stories up. In India, the earlier story would have resulted in your being arrested for suspicious behaviour, your checked in luggage and carry on luggage subjected to sniffer dogs and whatever else gadgets to ensure that there are no IEDs in them and then after thorough checks with records you would be allowed to go if in the meanwhile you had been on good behaviour. If not, you get to spend more time inside. In the meanwhile, your flight has taken off and you have lost a day’s wages and the cost of the ticket. And if you wrote about it I would have said thank God that the security guys are on their toes because, our neighbour, the most volatile nation on earth keeps sending emissaries into our land to cause damage which they call bleeding us to death.
Rummuser, one of the best parts about living in the United States is that even when we’re pulled out of the line and given the heavier search, as I was back in April, we still don’t have to worry about our next door neighbors even thinking about trying to bomb us out of existence. Luckily, I was also in my hometown, as it might have been a much different story in NYC or DC.
Heh. You skipped all the bits between takeoff and landing. What – was that just too boring for words? LOL
Oh, well, the title IS Airport Stories. Still, I bet you had some fun up in the air, too?
Cheers,
Mitch
Actually Mitch, the part in the air is really boring. Rarely does much happen while on the plane that doesn’t involve children. Every once in a while… well, you know. 🙂
Gee, like it wasn’t all bad. Yes you had to wait for another flight but at least you got to meet someone new and were lucky enough to have a show put on for you lol
I only ever had to happen for a plane once. The family and I were about to fly home from Hawaii when we found out that they had overbooked a flight. Something that never happens in Australia, at least not that I know about. We were offered 5 hundred bucks and a night in a hotel if we gave up our seats. Couldn’t do it as I had to be home. Don’t know why we still had to wait. There were people sleeping on the floor. I couldn’t do it because I had to keep an eye on the kids.
Pete, all airlines overbook; that’s just how it goes. They want to make sure they’ll get their money’s worth, and it costs them little to offer a voucher since more than 50% of the people who accept it never use it. I’ve taken it a couple of times when I’ve had the time, and my wife took one when she went to Pittsburgh and is using it for her next trip. Luckily, if I fly on the one airline I’ll always get to fly. 😉
Maybe in the States Mitch but as far as I know it doesn’t happen here. We also don’t have retina scans and don’t have to strip to get in, but then we never had September 11 happen to us either.
Now you know better than that Pete. lol All I did was put in the words on Google and came across this link first. You do have overbooking in Australia, but it seems that you have it worst over the U.S., Europe and Canada in that they don’t have to offer you vouchers when they do overbook. Here’s the link: http://events.com.au/overbooking-airlines-guide-to-air-passenger-rights/
If I were you I would try my hand writing a novel. You got me going till the end and kept interested. I really hate airports even when I am going on holiday. How do you keep up with constant travels and long waits?
If you don’t want to be searched at the airport you need to walk and act confident other than making sure you don’t have anything on you to make the machine beep. I have been testing this and when you act calm and collected they don’t bother with you.
Thanks Jen for the nice words about the post. I keep up with it well since I’m now used to it, but the first couple of months I didn’t handle some of the distractions all that well. Now I just roll with it all.
Regarding the other part, I’d have to say that’s not quite true. I’m very confident now but I still get stopped from time to time. They always say it’s random, and it possibly is, but I can tell you it has nothing to do with confidence; not after this long a period of time. The funny thing is the only place I’ve been pulled out of line is my home airport; you’d think those folks would like me.
Wow. You are right. You simply can not make all this stuff up right? What a snowball of errors and comedy. You know, come to think of it, this story would make a fun short film. 🙂
You might be right Troy, and Denzel’s approximately my age! lol
What I can find from the story, you are bold enough to handle those unexpected problems. If I would have been at your place with no boarding pass and D L with me, I would have started panic by the time because I just cant relax when such situations come. But I am happy that all went well in your case but yes things are not so easy in India.
Prerna, over the last year I find that for the most part I’ve started reacting to things in more of a calm manner, at least initially, because even when I can’t initially figure out what to do, the answers either eventually come or my mind realizes there’s nothing to be done so let’s make the best out of a bad situation. In a way, since I’ve been traveling so much, I felt like I was in my element, even if everything didn’t go my way.
It is always fun, isn’t it. Yeah, some of these things simple can’t be made-up. I have a bunch of my own crazy experience on different airports that I often tell to people that I hangout with.
I bet you do Carl; it’d be great seeing some of your stories on your blog.
I know an incident with my dad which happened over Heathrow airport where he literally rushed for his flight over to the lobby asking them to wait for few minutes.
It was a great and funny read.
That’s common Charmie. Sometimes your first flight gets pushed back & you have problems getting to that second one.