As a cynical and generally exhausted frequent flyer it is easy for me to lose my perspective and, frequently, my sense of humor. For me flying is a weekly exercise in frustration; of countless small annoyances and indignities.
Any frequent traveler would agree that flying is a combination of flight attendants who only smile when delivering bad news (“There is no running water in the lavatory!”) and pilots who deliver bad news in horribly mangled syntax: (“Ah, we are. Ah, number 73. In line for. Ah takeoff.”)
Airline employees are a curious combination of incompetence and rudeness. I say “curious” because in my experience, in the real world, the surly employees are often the most competent, which is why we put up with them (yes, I mean you, copier repairman) while the most incompetent are often highly charming, which is how they keep their jobs. (“She’s worthless, but very pleasant.”) Airline employees manage to combine both traits AND keep their jobs.
Of course the bane of any frequent flyer is the dreaded “leisure traveler” – the creature who flies once a year, often bringing infants, pets or bed pillows with them. (When you see someone traveling with a bed pillow, look out.) Leisure travelers are the ones who can’t find their photo ID, don’t understand the term “Take your shoes off” and try to fit steamer trunks in the overhead compartment. Their main purpose in life is to walk as slowly as possible through Atlanta airport.
Given my disdain for the travel process you can see why I am jaundiced. Why, it’s enough to make me forget about the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow or that every cloud has a silver lining or that April showers…. You get the picture.
Anyway, this is not a state of mind conducive to happy travels, especially when you are flying Delta from JFK airport, the closest thing we have to a third-world airport. To start, I was running very late; this always sends me into a state of anxiety even though I know that the odds of a flight leaving JFK on time are remote. To make matters worse, I was hungry and had nothing to read, and even though I would rather give up eating than reading, I get resentful when I must choose.
I got to the gate 10 minutes before departure and the airplane was not even there yet. Grateful that I now had the time to get a sandwich and a book, I asked the gate agent what the new departure time would be. She ignored me, grabbed the microphone and said, ”We are 10 minutes away from an on-time departure.” Wondering whether she was a great liar or just dangerously stupid, or, not impossibly, both, I left to get my book and sandwich. When I came back 20 minutes later the plane was still not there and she was still babbling about on-time departures.
When they started boarding (an hour later), I was disheartened to see 21 wheelchairs filled with elderly passengers in line for pre-boarding. This took some time, since they only had 2 attendants on wheelchair duty, but eventually we took off. And here is the miraculous thing. Maybe being 30,000 feet closer to God makes a difference, but when we arrived at the gate in Ft Lauderdale, fully 19 of those people jumped up, got their luggage down from the overhead bin and raced down the jetway under their own power. Last time a miracle of this magnitude was seen a lad named Lazarus was involved, and here I witnessed it on a Delta flight from JFK. What are the odds?