.
understand: shit like this almost never happens to me.
and not because of luck or any other such random nonsense--no, it's because, of the very few hard-and-fast rules which populate the sloppy, haphazard landscape of the life of mkf, there are two that are almost never broken; namely,
- always fly nonstop; and
- never check anything.
of course, when one vacillates until the very last minute, certain concessions to reality must sometimes be made--this time, it was rule no. 1 that got shitcanned.
* * * * *
on the way to tulsa international in my little rental hyundai with plenty of time to spare, i hear the ping on my iphone--i glance down and see it's a travel alert from orbitz: one of my two flights home is gonna be 30 minutes late.
fuck. i naturally pray to god for it to be the denver-LAX leg, but no--that would be too easy, right?
after enduring the inevitable pat-down at security [forget even once to remove that little 2-inch swiss army knife from your keychain? trust me, you'll be on the list forever] i sit at the gate, read my ten-dollar paperback and mentally will the plane in early, because god knows i don't wanna spend the night in fuckin' denver.
but sure as shit, and as inevitably as night follows day, what i knew would happen, happens: the 30-minute delay to denver turns into 45 minutes.
which will leave me with exactly zero minutes to make my connecting flight to los angeles.
once we finally board, i white-knuckle it all the way, praying to a god in which i don't believe that He in His wisdom will somehow bend space and time in such a way as to allow me to make my connecting flight home.
as we make our final approach into denver, we're told (a) how sincerely sorry united is for being late; (b) we'll be berthing at gate B95; and (c) that almost all connecting flights [to shitholes like laramie, des moines, boise and topeka] will be leaving from gates immediately surrounding the one we'll be pulling into.
los angeles, on the other hand? um, that'll be gate B25.
[seventy gates away, in case you're bad at math]
once we land, and even though i know it's a lost cause, i make the effort anyway, praying once again to a lost god that he'll hold the plane for me--i run like i haven't run in years.
please god--i'll never ask for anything ever again.
i round that last corner dry-mouthed, rubber-legged, hyperventilating and outta breath, seeing the abandoned gate and expecting a closed door.
but, no--the ticket agent's there, hand out, waiting for me with an expectant smile: "mr. f? thanks for getting here so fast!"
holy shit--they held the plane for me.
thank you, jesus.
i walk down the empty jetway and onto the plane--everybody's seated and watching me, resentful of my imposition upon their time [i.e., welcome back to LA]. i head back to my approximate area--there's no clear space in the overheads for my roll-on, so i start reshuffling other peoples' lesser shit to other bins in order to make room for mine, oblivious of their protesting gasps.
when i'm done, i find my seat--34F [because i'd also ended up violating mkf rule no. 3: always fly aisle].
the snotty anorexic bottle-blonde in 34D rolls her eyes, sighs, clears all her shit off the empty seats she'd thought were hers and reluctantly pauses in her texting long enough to get up and let me in.
the first time i make her get up and let me out during the flight home is because i honestly need to go to the can; the second and third times are purely gratuitous and due to nothing more than (a) my perverse nature, and (b) her being such a fucking cunt the first time.
by the time we're on final approach to LAX, i'm seething with self-righteous anger at the injustice of being seated in a planeful of such assholes.
until i remember my earlier, earnest promises of eternal gratitude, and i start to chuckle to myself.
which noticeably freaks out the blonde to my left.
which, in balance, is fine with me.
thank you, jesus.
3 comments:
Welcome home. That is, after 20 years, you consider LA your home. If not, just welcome back.
Oh boy, are you lucky! My experience with connecting flights when plane A is delayed a bit, plane B gives away my seats and takes off even I am able to get to the gate ten minutes before scheduled take-off by running hard.
This was United in Chicago and I was SO pissed and insistent that I got a meal voucher and an upgrade to Business on the substitute flight from the SOBs.
Nowadays I really hate flying . I always feel so dry inside the cabin and sometimes too hot or too cold .
But I think this post for me really highlighted the kind of existential questions that people take for granted .
Namely: is LA really your home ?
Why were you so excited to run back to a shithole where you're just going to get drunk again ?
Is the only thing spurring your feet to the gate the idea that waiting in an airport is so much more disastrous than joblessly exhaling the rest of your days ?
I don't mean this as a judgment of your life , but rather as a reminder for me that if I ever lived an atheist life , why should I even care ? Being late to a gate is par for the course in a world that has no meaning . I'd just kill myself the first chance I got if it weren't for the idea that even if i convinced myself of such an existential morass , that there would be something in my soul pinging to something distant that passes through the ambiguity , nausea , and ennui .
So for someone like me who believes that God speaks to me dramatically (i.e. through the very reality around me) , then what is he proposing in this drama of me flying from ohio to california , for example ? Is it just ornamentation in a meaningless life ?
because in the end I have to decide to approach it in one of two ways . That ultimately , it's devoid of any meaning , or that reality itself is saturated by a meaning and content (and not some sentimental 'oh that's nice'ness) but rather that a person is calling out to me in the very situations (whether bad or good) .
This is why I say hello to them sitting next to me .
Because the unhappy unloved drunken gruff man sitting next to me might be mkf and I never knew until I opened myself up and loved him .
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