All in All, A Good Week

Ever have mornings when you feel like your blood runs slow?

Anyway, I made it out of the Snowpocalypse and had a lovely visit with the Gentleman Caller (as usual!). Since the train wasn't running above ground, and since a cab ride probably would have involved the sale of all of my worldly possession and a bank loan, I ended up driving to the airport. Gretl the Garmin took me through downtown, which was surprisingly devoid of traffic. Then, again, the snow had essentially closed down the city. I only really had three moments of pure, heart-stopping anxiety.

The first moment took place when I had to enter a freeway. The snow plows had created gigantic snow banks that towered far above my car and filled the merging lanes. That meant that I had to drive straight into traffic, blind. Nothing like an adrenaline rush to make you feel alive! Or to ensure that your car is powered by profanity, particularly the F word.

Surviving that, I arrived at the airport and headed to the economy lot. At the economy lot, snow covered all of the cars. "Shit," I thought (the car was still running on profanity). "I'm going to have to dig myself out when I get back." Much like the plows at my apartment complex, these at the airport lot had just plowed enough space for one car to wobble its way down the center of the rows of buried cars. That led to more profanity and another car and I nearly engaged in a dogfight when we met nose-to-nose in the center of a particularly long lane and both had to back out.

Then, I noticed that there were no spaces for parking. Not that there were no parking spaces. In fact, a surprising number of spaces appeared to be unoccupied. Unoccupied, that is, except for a 2-foot covering of snow. Whoever called for the snowplows forgot to tell them to plow out some spaces for cars to actually park. When I notices some people leaving the lot, I went in search of their spaces, only to realize that, since those people were leaving in SUVs, they had been able to plow over the 3-foot drifts behind their behemoths and had left behind mounds that may have fit beneath a ginormous gas-guzzler, but would stop my little Mazda cold. (Hee! Cold: a pun!)

With my car still running on profanity, I said, "Fuck it," and went to the parking garage. The price may have been nearly double, but not having to dig out my car -- or, indeed, dig it in -- when I returned, nor having to wait in snow 3-feet deep for a shuttle bus, was totally worth the $85 I paid to park there.

In the airport, I expected to see hundreds of people camped out up and down the concourses. I just knew that the line through security would stretch around and around for miles with people tired and grumpy and just wanting to get the hell out of the city. I anticipated harried airline clerks and security drones. I expected a riot.

So, imagine by combined disappointment and relief when I saw that the place was practically deserted. "Damn, no blog post!" I thought. "Hallelujah! No line!"I exclaimed. I had plenty of time to disrobe and unpack, then re-robe and re-pack at X-ray machines.

As I skipped away from security (as much as anyone dragging a suitcase with a jammed wheel and a ten-ton computer bag can skip), a voice from on high announced, "mrmmrmmmh flight cancelled." I froze mid-skip. "No." I said. "NO!" That was the second time that my heart-stopped.

Then, the stampede. A herd of people burdened with suitcases and coats and Mardi Gras beads swept past me.

Mardi Gras beads?

The announcement repeated, this time more clearly. "Flight xxxx to New Orleans has been cancelled due to weather. You can only be changed to a new flight at the ticket counter."

"Hallelujah!" I sang. "Awesome!"

Wait. A flight to New Orleans has been cancelled "due to weather"? A hurricane? In February?

I later heard from my aunt down that way. They had snow. The flight to central New York was on time, but the flight to southeast Louisiana, the swamp, was cancelled due to snow. Maybe this really is the apocalypse.

My flight was on time, the Gentleman Caller picked me up; and we were so cute that, if you saw us at any point over the next five days, you would have gagged right before you fell into a diabetic coma. I also finally finished the overhaul of my Frederick Douglass's sister article.

Then, I had to return, which was when I encountered by my third moment of anxiety. I stepped up to the kiosk to check in and the screen said that it could not find me on my flight. I tried again. Again, the computer could not find me on the flight. Knowing me as I do, I thought, "It would be just like me to have completely flaked and booked my flight for 5 AM instead of 5 pm." I pulled out my flight plan.

No, I got the time right. There I was, all booked to fly out at 5 pm.

Five pm on Monday, MARCH 15th.

"I am the stupidest person in the world," I said. The ticket agents demonstrated that customer service that airlines are so noted for when, at a ticket desk with no line and no other customers, I approached them to ask them to change my ticket. They must have been talking about something of vital, national importance based on their highly insulted reaction to my request. I made sure to thank them profusely when they were able to get me on the one remaining seat on the flight that I wanted -- at an extra charge of $150 (It's been a long time since I've had Ramen noodles. I think I may want some for the next, oh, two or three weeks). I think that one of them may have been hearing disabled because, after I said "thank you thank you thank you" and turned to head for the gate, one of them replied, "THANK YOU" in that voice that your mom uses on you to prompt you when you have failed to show your gratitude.

The flight back ran a little late, and was so small that I thought I was in steerage. Perhaps that might be a good name for an airline: Steerage Air. Their slogan could be, "We pack you in as tight as the laws of physics will allow, all for an arm and a leg!" Seriously, I've had more room in a Cessna. I was supposed to sit by the window, but the person who had the aisle ticket had already taken that seat. I didn't fight him for it because there was really no room for us to change positions and because I was already getting claustrophobic on the aisle where at least there was room to breathe. By the window, with the overhead bins, a passenger next to me, and the assholes in front who don't realize that other people exist and lean their seats back? I'd have lost my damn mind.

By the way, the novel that I read on the plane, a work of historical fiction set in the reign of Elizabeth I (and is not by Philippa Gregory), involved a character shut in a tiny little cave of a space called "Little Ease," as a form of torture. I felt his pain.

Despite my usual bitching and moaning, I arrived home in one piece, didn't have to dig out my car, and was actually rather relieved to return to work after a week and a half of quarantine by snow.