Fasten Seat Belt While Seated
An Adventure of Mild Inconvenience: Leaving Everywhere, To Get Back Home
Worried Mind
The fuzzy intercom isn’t clear but is discernable enough to hear the bad news. The reason we haven’t pushed away from the gate is a small maintenance issue. More static and gibberish. Then, “it should be a quick fix”. I check my watch and see I am a-ok. I have a connecting flight in Chicago at 7:30 central and am currently in Charlotte where it’s 5:30 eastern. More time passes. I am checking the time every time it changes now, calculating if I’ll make that connecting flight. An inconvenient layover is rapidly compressing into a life raft. Too much longer for the quick fix and the raft will pop. I will miss my connection from Chicago back home to Austin.
Robot Dreams
I know my phone is rapidly dying and that I ought to put it down – let it rest and juice it for all it’s got. But I can’t help myself now. I compulsively task switch between non-tasks: refresh the United app, check the time, scroll Twitter, text my anxiety out to my family, and cruelly… checking the battery level. I realize the more desperate the situation the faster it goes. Eventually as the battery goes down and the minutes climb up, I reach the deflating moment where I can no longer make the connecting flight in Chicago. I use a few more percentages to look for an alternate flight from Chicago to Austin. There are none. I am stranded. Thirty more minutes go by before the garbled static returns like salt for my wounds: “everyone must get off the plane. The issue is going to require longer to fix.”
Now I am the most desperate I’ve been all day. In line to rearrange my flights. And far from the front. The lingering hope I am holding onto is that they can put me on an alternate airline, and I will still get home tonight, much too late, but better than never. My battery is at 9% - wait now 8% - the more you check the lower it gets. I am listening to hold music attempting to inspire me while also trying to memorize my short confirmation number in case my phone dies before I reach the front. Of course, I could go find an uncomfortable spot to plug it in but there are two main problems. The first is that I cannot abandon my spot in line. The second that I need to be on the phone, and I’ve only got one of those pad chargers where you rest your phone flat to charge it. It’s at 5% when the hold music abruptly stops. I fear the worst, but then!
“Hello, thank you for calling United. My name is Juan, how can I assist you today?” When Juan asks for my confirmation number I don’t even have to look.
It’s at this point that I recount for Juan, an abridged version of the following story.
I’ve been in Charlotte this whole week for a work trip. I flew out Monday afternoon with little to remark on. We had some bad turbulence which I hadn’t experienced in a while, but honestly the shrieking fellow passengers got my heart rate going more than the turbulence itself. On Thursday, I wrapped the work trip and called my Uber to head for the airport. I was on the lookout for a Grey KIA. When I finally saw one I hoped I was mistaken, maybe that KIA is more of a washed blue? The car came hopping over curbs to a chorus of honks as it made an illegal left turn. The polite looking driver was an older man and had thinning hair, probably in his sixties I thought, and he called to me through the open window that he’d pull forward a bit further.
I am not sure why, but I decided not to listen to a podcast during the ride, maybe as a subconscious desire to be extra-alert. Patrick, my gregarious Uber driver, is indeed in his sixties. Sixty-four I believe he said. He begins telling me about himself. He worked at the airport for over thirty years but five months ago was unceremoniously laid off. He doesn’t tell me details, but quotes his relative (Aunt I think he said?) with “how are you going to lay off someone who has worked for you for thirty years?” We keep talking about this and that, what I do for work, why I am in town. I am glad I opted out of the AirPods. Patrick is nice and I’ve forgotten about his rocky entrance into my life. He continues replying to my restrained small talk with meaningful personal information. I can’t quite tell if Patrick and I have led remarkably similar lives despite our differences or if he’s simply being polite and pretending. I realize somewhere halfway into his tales of living in New York for a dozen years (just a couple blocks north of my first New York apartment) that it’s the former.
Patrick and I finally slip out of the kind of conversation you have with strangers and into a real one. I tell him how tired I am from the week and that I am eager to get back and spend time with Tessa. He tells me about his first wife (“and true love, like peas in a pod”) who suddenly died of a brain aneurysm when their son was only four years old. He asks if Tessa and I want kids and tells me “There’s no rush” but I suddenly feel one. He tells me God has a plan for us both and I politely agree despite my unbelief. At the airport drop off Patrick and I say goodbye like new friends, and he bumps away down the road.
As I snake through the security line, still thinking of Patrick, I am greeted by the TSA agents and treated like a child. I have accepted this part of travel. Every airport has unique rules (which items of clothing they’d like you to take off) and even the same airports change these rules day to day. That part I don’t mind. The part that bothers me is when the TSA agents act shocked when I take my laptop out of my bag as if they can’t begin to imagine where I got the idea. But these days I am cool and relaxed. I politely nod and put it away.
As I exit the full body scanner the scrawny agent with glasses takes a big breath and says “aaalllright, you triggered an alert for the groin area. I am going to need to do a pat down. I will do this with the back of my hands.” He shows me his hands, wrapped in blue latex. I process this with a light heart and then as he steps closer to me, he says, “we have a separate room if you’d prefer a private screening.”
“No thanks” I say.
Following that minor violation, the first hour at the Charlotte airport goes exceptionally well. I find the airport lounge (called “The Club”) and have a free cup of coffee and do some programming. On my way out, heading for the gate, I grab a free Sprite for my flight. Soon I am boarded and in my seat, everything going great. But then, the hum of the intercom and the bad news.
We shuffle off the plane and begin to form a clumpy line. The pilots hang out near the counter where several passengers in business attire begin chatting them up, fresh beer in plastic cups already in hand (Blue Moon probably). I’ve noticed this before. People on delayed flights love nothing more than being chummy with the pilots. I think it’s an authority thing, maybe they imagine the pilot with greying hair is their father. Or maybe it’s just a cool kids club or a kind of “we’re all in this together” spirit. Certain passengers begin forming little cliques, occasionally someone is bold enough to make a witty remark just loud enough for five or six others to hear and chuckle. I am somehow suddenly familiar with a few dozen faces that I’ll never see again. I begin imagining personalities for them all and then seeing evidence of the personalities I’ve assigned to them on display. All of this is happening as I listen to the hold music emulating Enya and panic about my phone. Then, as you know, I am connected to Juan.
Juan has me booked on the quickest route back to Austin before my phone reaches 2%. Unfortunately, the quickest route back to Austin is quite slow. Juan tells me my best option is to sleep in Charlotte for the night and catch a 10 AM flight to Newark in the morning. Then, I’ll suffer a mildly inconvenient layover (I hear this as a plus) before boarding my flight to Austin. I’ll land back home around 6:30 PM, just a day late. I am grateful for Juan’s quick work and eager to get off the phone. He tells me to stay in line and when I reach the front, the United crew will be able to “release” my new tickets. I thank him and we hang up.
When I finally reach the front of the line, my phone has finally died. But I am relaxed. It held on for as long as it needed to. It sleeps now, it’s earned its rest. My worrying has mostly stopped and there are no more decisions I need to make. I am bummed I won’t get home tonight but this is just how it goes. The man in front of me is wrapping up his conversation with the gate agent.
Roll On Babe
It could be worse I remind myself a few times. It has been worse. One time I was flying from JFK to Atlanta to be with Tessa for my birthday. It was a night flight on… Spirit. Something very similar to the situation I was now in went down after hours on the runway. In that case the crew for our flight had reached their max work hours. There were no other flights, even if Spirit were as accommodating as Juan, which they definitely aren’t. Waiting in a line very similar to the one I was currently waiting in, I struck up a casual conversation with two people next to me. Travel delays tend to make people more social. Turns out we were all from Atlanta and even knew some of the same people. Eventually, after waiting in the line so long, we joked that we should just rent a car and drive through the night down to Atlanta. Before we knew it, we were looking up the drive on Apple Maps. The drive was merely 11 hours so we could make it to Atlanta, switching off drivers when one of us got tired, by late morning. The line refused to shorten; our joke evolved into a real option. We looked at one another one more time, to ask without words, “are we doing this?” The answer was yes.
We abandoned the line defiantly, giddy, in control of our own lives. But also… already exhausted by the road that lied ahead. These two brothers ended up covering the full cost of the rental car (their dad had bought it for them) and we drove together all the way back home. It was mostly fine, fun even, except for the older brother’s horrible taste in music and even worse driving capabilities (the only worse driver I’d encountered was the younger brother who drifted to sleep at the wheel somewhere in Virginia). The older brother had the AUX cord the whole drive and had a strong affinity for Ska music. He also apparently enjoyed tailgating other cars at high speeds and seeing how abruptly he could get the rented Honda Civic to come to a stop with little notice. How do you tell someone you’ve just met to slow down or be more careful? I rolled the question in my mind for several hundred miles, eventually deciding we were too close to the Georgia state line for it to matter anymore. We rolled into Atlanta, on the morning of my birthday, parted ways and have never seen one another since.
So, I know it could be worse. And even when it is worse, is it really that bad? I now look back on that story quite fondly. Even the obtrusive Ska has become somewhat endearing (somewhat). Things begin to feel ok being second in line and just a day or so late by way of plane. The man in front of me has got his new ticket and a hotel voucher. No signs of turbulence.
He and the agent exchange parting smiles and I almost step forward. But then one man hanging out on the periphery, not in the line but sort of idling near the vinyl rope like a child clinging to the curb of a pool, snipes the agent’s attention and suddenly has it. Like a pack of wolves sensing a wounded animal, several more line-skippers (including the cool kids chatting with the pilots) descend upon the agent. There is a crescendo of grumbling behind me and I feel kinship with the frustrated fellow passengers. Anger bubbles up, you try to keep it at bay. You try to accept your circumstances when you cannot change them. You try.
I’m able to meditate my way through the first few stolen questions but am hopeless as the number approaches eleven. The shameless line pirates have exhausted the gate agent and as I finally step up and greet him with a smile, he can only ask, “last name?”
Chicago New York
My plan was to simply follow the plan laid out by Juan on the phone. Have the gate agent print my new tickets for the next day’s flights (Charlotte to Newark to Austin you’ll remember) and cancel my Chicago ticket for tomorrow from Chicago to Austin that the system automatically booked me on as a courtesy for missing the connection.
But then I hear the gate agent tell me he has an update. He asks me to wait a moment (I’ve been getting good at this) and picks up his intercom. Suddenly he’s announcing that they’ve hatched a new idea. He calls it “tailing”. Basically, there is a flight coming in from Chicago that has to return to Chicago, and we can all hitch a ride on it if we want. Now my worrying starts up again as I begin making a pros and cons list of the two paths forward. At first, I think I ought to stick with Juan’s idea.
Here’s why:
It was late by this point. I wanted to sleep and thought it better to get to Austin the next day a tad later and not have to fly to Chicago and deal with the hotel hassle at 1:30 AM.
I’d seen that the next day forecast was calling for a blizzard in Chicago.
But then, I begin to feel tempted by the idea of getting back to Austin sooner. Noon is much better than 6:30. I knew I had a lot of work to get done the next day, that work would essentially be impossible with the New York plan. Plus, I Google the forecast for New York and am dismayed to discover they anticipate flash floods all Friday due to severe thunderstorms.
So that’s the decision: Blizzard versus Flood.
I know what it’s like being in the line behind me and want to make my decision quickly. Besides, who’s to say which route will be best? It’s a coin flip. I put the United agent in the uncomfortable role of counselor, somehow imagining his experience with these things can give me anything concrete. He gives me the inevitable, “it’s hard to say, could go either way.”
Chicago is expecting quite a bit of snow, but I read that the worst of it is coming in the later half of the day by which time (with any luck) I’ll be long gone. Chicago is accustomed to handling snow. Newark feels wrong for some reason. Maybe because I was still clinging to the original plan. With a later flight was I at a greater risk of being impacted by delays caused by the severe thunderstorms and possible flooding?
Blizzard versus flood.
I chose blizzard.
Simple Times
The lounge affords me two pieces of pita and a glob of hummus that has overstayed its welcome. I have a 40-minute window to make peace with my new itinerary before the new flight to Chicago is ready for us. I am now thinking of a Blue Moon too. But after a night out with colleagues earlier in the week and three martinis, I began my dry January on January 10th. I order a non-alcoholic Heineken and the bartender (who wants to start substitute teaching) plops two orange wedges into it. It is divine.
I look around the lounge as I charge my phone and sip my “beer”. The last time I was here nothing had yet gone wrong. Now, only a few hours later, the night sat miserably. I’d been confronted with several waves of mild frustration and logistical inconvenience, but over all my mood was hanging on. I saw the humor in the unfolding events and had accepted the situation now. My thoughts drifted toward Chicago as I dreamt of falling asleep.
I continue checking my watch to time my return to the gate, paranoia lingering. When it comes, I swipe another free Sprite to bookend the night.
The crowd has thinned now. We look at one another like battle beaten comrades. The mannered detachment you embody at the airport gives way to casualness. People stretch out a little further, sling their carry-ons and outer-layers into neighboring chairs, some of us sit on the stained carpet floor to charge our devices, the United agents are no longer hiding their real selves behind the veil of professionalism. I am asked to raise my hand to indicate I have my boarding pass. I am spoken to (again) like a kindergartener several more times. I’m so tired that it begins to feel endearing. The gate agent sleepily begins slipping in jokes with each new announcement. The crowd humors him with a few half-hearted laughs and smirks as we wait to board at last.
In my seat I let out a sigh of relief. The plane is only half full now. The middle seat I’ve been assigned is no longer required. I wait a moment for one last decision: window or aisle seat. For morning flights, I like the window seat. I want to be in control of letting in the morning light, something people seem averse to these days. When I am already awake, I might as well embrace it. For night flights I like the aisle though. It feels more impolite to wake a sleeping passenger to go to the bathroom on a night flight. A straggler comes to a stop at my aisle, smiles, and nods towards the window seat. We shuffle around and are soon seated, I’m in the aisle. The flight attendants know we are tired and speak quietly without all the pointing through the safety brief. The pilots come over the speakers, we hold our breath fearing the déjà vu, but they tell us not to worry, thoughtfully and aware of how we feel, and make some mundane announcement. The cabin lights dim. Finally, we take off for O’Hare.
I relax again and recount the silver linings:
My unexpected extra time in the lounge is enough to resurrect my phone. It got to 58%. I’ve also had the time to download a new podcast for the flight.
The new flight is only an hour and change rather than two.
I might get to see snow.
Free hotel.
I had a breakthrough coding session at gate C31.
Shelter
The plane we are on is old. It has those early 2000’s feeling volume controls on the armrests. The TV screens are playing a slideshow on loop all throughout the plane for a cadre of ghosts. The living passengers have mostly dimmed theirs to black. The screens are advertising in flight Direct TV – “Don’t Miss a Second!”. This seems cruel and taunting. Not only did I miss a second (flight), I’ve missed hours by now. I sit back and close my eyes, listening to the podcast I downloaded in the lounge. Just when I think I’m in the clear – 27 minutes into the two-hour podcast and phone at 51% - my AirPods die. Et tu Brute? To occupy my silence, I begin to write.
I turn on the overhead light. This briefly rouses my aisle mate who is using his coat as a blanket. Some plane’s overhead lights are far too bright, like the blue-white LED headlights new cars have. These ones were perfect, little brighter than candles and warm as a flame. It is hard to write clearly with the unpredictable bumps of occasional turbulence. My writing comes out slanted and desperate, like it was written by someone hopped up on too much caffeine. The refreshment cart rolls its way to me. As it gets closer, aisle by aisle, I write, sentence by sentence. My clearest thinking happens at 30,000 feet. Whole themes are falling into my head, roughly etched into my notebook. I am writing about my day and more. Putting words to the events is draining them of their power, loosening their hold on me. I stop worrying about my phone battery or my dead AirPods. I am able to let the logistics of arranging the hotel room pause until we land. The ideas I capture in my notebook feel large and important.
“Anything to drink sir?”
At 11:23 PM I wonder if it’s absurd to have my fourth cup of coffee. When I’m awake might as well be awake right? I think better of it and try a hail Mary, “any decaf by chance?” He simply replies, “cream or sugar?”
“Just black, thanks.”
When we land the Chicago airport is long deserted. The gate agents here are discussing tomorrow’s (I check my watch… technically today’s I think) forecast, like elementary schoolers hoping for a snow day. I chime in, “if you had to guess, what’s the probability of getting out of here if I have a 9:15 AM flight?” They think on it for a moment and then reassure me, “morning flights should be good, it’s the afternoon flights that are out of luck.” I thank them and confirm the best way to the hotel shuttle I am after. “Oh nice, you picked a good one” they say.
I follow the flight attendants from my flight all through the airport. It feels like the start to some unmade Studio Ghibli film. The restaurant and shop workers are rolling mop buckets and pulling down metal gates, a man in a highlighter green vest steers a Zamboni like floor buffer around some cones.
Eventually I am zipping my coat as high up as it’ll go and stepping into the cold night air. A symphony of shuttles are idling already, mufflers and hazards softly singing. None of them are for me. I check my watch. One by one over the next fifteen minutes, four other passengers from my flight circle up and we begin to chat, the sorry team of stranded travelers.
We’ve all selected the same hotel, the “good one”. So we all wait, together in the cold. I try to cheer them up and relay the Chicago gate agents’ reassurance about morning flights being safe and afternoon flights being the problem. All three of my companions have afternoon flights.
“Oh, I’m sure it’s fine though”, I mumble.
Another fifteen minutes passes, we’ve watched a dozen shuttles come and go. Eventually, I think to call the hotel and ask them where our shuttle is. After a day full of helpless passivity, finally, I feel a sense of agency returning. The woman at the hotel desk has no idea where the shuttle might be, she only knows that “it isn’t at the hotel, so it will probably be there soon.” I don’t give up there. It feels too good to let go of my new found agency so soon. I walk over to the friendly looking Marriott shuttle driver and ask if he knows where ours might be. He points waaaay down the way, to the sleeping van just at the edge of the pickup loop, surrounded by darkness. It has been there since I first stepped outside some thirty minutes prior, without even the dimmest glow to signal that it hasn’t been abandoned. “Yeah that’s probably him, he likes to hang out down there.” I thank him and begin to head back towards my little group to tell them the news, but he stops me. “I’ll go grab em, you stay here.” I object, he doesn’t need to do that. “It’s good for the ole legs! I don’t mind.” He starts his long trek to retrieve our aloof and possibly sleeping driver.
I am back with my crew, I’ve shared the news. They roll their eyes with me but are happy at the progress. Our shuttle pulls up, our generous pal from the Marriott grinning ear to ear riding shotgun. I thank him again and we shake hands. Our driver doesn’t say a word in acknowledgement of his strange delay. We ride off in silence and are soon at the hotel. Once more, my poor phone is dying but holding on. Once more, I memorize a confirmation code just in case, this time for the hotel voucher. As I check in, the man at the desk tells me the airport shuttle leaves every forty-five minutes starting at 3 AM. Before I head up to my room, I swing by the fluorescent “market”, a few shelfs of chips and candy. I grab a Cliff Bar, a sparkling water, and a bag of BBQ chips. They’ll have to do.
The room is clean but oddly designed. The rooms all flow into one another, forming an awkward square. There is a door that opens to a wall, and a closet that has a door in the back of it, which opens to the bathroom. Still, it is entirely welcoming to me. I lay down and choose to lean into the strange day I’ve had and this strange hotel room I find myself in by selecting an Aliens and Unexplained Phenomena “documentary” on Netflix. Before I close my eyes, I set fifteen alarms and, for good measure, a sixteenth on the hotel alarm clock. I slip into the kind of dreamless slumber that is somehow still stranger than the strangest dreams.
Via Chicago
I wake up between alarms two and three, well ahead of schedule. I am timing the shuttle to arrive at the airport with a large margin for error. I feel like George Amberson from King’s 11-22-63, leaving no chances to be challenged by chance. I stand and stretch and yawn myself awake. I head for the closed curtains and honestly have the thought (conditioned by living in Austin no doubt) “I bet it didn’t even snow”. I pull them open to a beautiful (and disappointing) skyline covered in it with more coming down with glee. Based on the portion of the hotel roof I am looking out on I estimate it’s already up to six inches. I begin to round up my things, the belongings I’ve had to pack and unpack and mentally track all week.
Down in the lobby a morning crew is gathered. I don’t recognize them (my crew have afternoon flights you’ll remember). They tell me the shuttle driver missed his last scheduled pick up and is, again, MIA. They have called an Uber (which is driving up) and I begin doing the same as they head out into the flurry.
My morning driver is no Patrick. We do not speak. He has seat covers covered in crumbs that make it impossible to access the buckle for my seatbelt. I slyly pull back the corner and buckle in while he steers us through snow and ice. I arrive safely at O’Hare three and a half hours before my scheduled takeoff and my gate thirty minutes after that. It relaxes me to be sitting with my laptop so ahead of schedule, but all that time provides me plenty to worry. I watch every gate, listen to every announcement. The gate directly next to mine is to Dallas. Soon I am horrified to see it is delayed two hours without explanation. I walk over to their gate and ask the agents for one. It’s a problem on the Dallas side to my delight.
This pattern repeats itself. I am forced to watch as flight after flight faces delays.
But not mine, I am still looking good. I buy a nice large hot cup of Intelligentsia coffee and have another productive coding session. I send out some client emails. Still on time. My devices charge up, from 93% back to 100%, over and over again. Occasionally I head for the window and watch the crews of well-coated workers shovel snow. It keeps falling down. They keep shoveling. I silently thank them and all the other people trying to help me get home.
It’s almost time to board and I feel flickers of hope with each new announcement. But then… more turbulence: the gate ramp is frozen and can’t fully extend out to our plane. “The crew is working on it and will hopefully have it working soon". The next half-hour drags out but then: “The gate ramp has been fixed and we are ready to begin the boarding process. Elite Gold Members and so and sos are welcome to board.” I pack up my things with joy and text my family that I might get lucky. The first passenger is scanning his boarding pass, the agent smiles and waves an arm towards the gate ramp, he steps forward.
“Attention all passengers, we’ve just been informed that we must temporarily stop the boarding process.”
The gate agent puts her arm in front of the Gold Member who came so close to boarding.
“The pilots have been delayed and aren’t expected to land for another thirty minutes.”
More information follows but all I can focus on is the updated screen above the speaker’s head and the tiny yellow letters that have replaced the green ones: delayed. It feels like we’ve caught some sickness that we all knew was spreading, but hoped would spare us.
This would go on to happen two more times. Just when hope seemed restored, some previously undisclosed item of the “ready to board” checklist would temporarily be denied checking off. Somewhere in there (it’s all a blur now) I gave up hope and texted my family the following text:
Leave Everywhere
Eventually, hope is reignited and I am watching the green slime de-ice us from the comfort of the window seat (my preference for morning flights you’ll remember). Then we are in line for takeoff. I begin to think this might actually happen. We get to the number two spot, threeish hours later than intended. I am chewing my nails and looking out the window - watching out the window might be closer to the truth, watching for trouble. The pilot comes on the intercom and tests my patience one last time. The southern runway has been closed and we’ve been asked to wait for takeoff until all the planes that had queued up over there can take off here. We go from the number two spot to number twelve. Fear creeps up again, I try to keep it at bay.
And suddenly it dawns on me that all this frustration, fear, and hopelessness is the sum of its opposite reflection. Opposite of the true love and appreciation I have for my life. For Tessa, our home, June pup, my family, my routines and the places I’ve designated for things (my chargers, notepads, clothes) . For how nice I feel with a fresh cup of coffee I brewed myself, at my desk, beginning a new work day. For the quiet of home or the noise of home, for getting to decide which. And that all the desperation, the turbulence, I’ve felt the past 36 hours is merely a reflection of all that warmth. The thing about turbulence is that it is startlingly disconcerting in the short term, but over the long term is inconsequential, harmless. With this realization, the tension in my neck and shoulders dissolves and Buddha-like, at long last, I accept the situation that I cannot change.
Then, a jolt. I look around surprised and see Chicago disappearing.
Liftoff.
Each header in the above essay is taken from a song I’d downloaded on Spotify for offline listening ahead of my work trip. You can listen to a playlist with them here!