A very wise and handsome man once said, “One thing that you can always count on, is that nothing is for certain.”
I can’t remember where or when it was that I said that, but there it is. Some people will fruitlessly argue with that statement and say, “What about death and taxes and blah blah blah?” To that I say, “Why stop there? What about convenience fees, or pressing the number one for Spanish? I’m sorry, was I talking out loud again?”
But there IS something that I can always count on. And that thing is like a cheap airline comfort blanket of sorts for me…my ridiculous and horribly hilarious travel karma. I carry it with me no different from how I drag along my wounded roller bag with the one wobbly wheel which I wear like a badge of honor. In short, my bag and I have seen some shit! Unbelievable and silly shit. Some shit will make you question the existence and validity of the universe itself. Vanishing flight crews, flights that disappear from airport flight screens as though they didn’t exist, flights that instantaneously morph on the gate monitor from your intended destination to a small village in Lithuania, luggage magically appearing on carousels nearly a block away from their intended conveyor without explanation, time freezing solid as gate agents hypnotize passengers into believing their flight will be boarding in five minutes for nearly two hours straight, vehicle GPS navigation that plot a route right through some poor person’s fence and back yard, or hotels that insist you have already checked in. The stories stretch much further than the very fabric of time itself, to the frayed edges of the universe and all alternate universes. In other words, it is inescapable.
In one of the aforementioned alternate universes, I’m just Mike. Mike is a guy that uneventfully drives to the airport and finds an unremarkable parking spot in your average parking garage. He walks up to the TSA personnel with a valid boarding pass and the proper identification, and proceeds through the security checkpoint and onto his intended flight just as millions of travelers do each and every day. He boards his flight at the predictably scheduled time, sits in his assigned seat, lands in his anticipated destination, procures transportation to his reserved evening accommodations, and refers to himself in the third person in a long and boring run-on sentence. Boring! It’s as though all of that time and effort is an inconsequential waste of time.
But in THIS universe, the one that you are sharing with me if you are reading this, I am Pirate Mike. My apparent super power is creating travel shenanigans where they would arguably otherwise not exist. I am the conjurer of connection catastrophes, a developer of departure debacles… if you will. A magnet of mischievous mishaps… if you please. Is this power manifested in order to transform the monotonous into an exciting adventure? Do these realities even exist at all? Why are there so many decorative pillows on my bed? Scientists and experts are baffled, and odds makers and bookies are astonished by the uncanny consistency.
Today I had a brush with normality, and it was frightening. Did my power leave me? Did the excessive sun radiation that I absorbed throughout my uncountable flights above the clouds no longer power my ability to bend, fold and rearrange reality in order to create unique travel adventures? What if all of my travel from this moment on were to be…GASP…uneventful?
It happened on this date, June 13th in the year of 2019. It was a glorious day. Not too warm, and a light spattering of clouds stretching into the distance in all directions. There was the typical collection of stereotypical traveling zombies at the gate awaiting our flight. We had the loud phone talking guy that was gearing the team up for that important meeting with the client. “Run the numbers again on this and validate, Roger. I want to make sure we ‘land the plane’ on this (air travel pun indeed intended with a loud chuckle). It’s probably the biggest contract this year.” Yes, we are all impressed with how important you and your phone call are, and we appreciate that your self-entitlement matches your speaking volume. Parts of the conversation sound as though he’s screaming bombing coordinates into a WWII combat radio covered in the blood of his fallen corporate comrades. There was the small group of twenty-somethings that will eternally act as though they’re on Spring Break no matter what time of year it is. Hey class of 2025, how are you all so drunk already at 8am?! And why so excited to get to Delaware? There’s the mysterious millionaire that begrudgingly approaches the check in-desk no less than 38 times to get urgent updates on his seat upgrade as he shoots looks of disdain and pity upon the common folk anxiously awaiting the seats reserved for peasants and farm animals behind first class. There was the young couple with the two small children swinging on them like monkeys on a piece of playground equipment (optional poop throwing), while their parents’ soulless eyes give the impression that they’d rather freefall out of the door of the plane than be seated securely inside. There was the hipster woman with a parakeet in a small canvas cage wearing a tiny vest that said “comfort animal” repeating incessantly that it’s her right to do so, and she has all of the necessary paperwork, even though nobody is asking her. There’s the small group of eight-or-so people wearing yesterday’s clothes after being bumped from flight to flight since last night, and they stare at the stand-by list on the monitor ready to jump and cheer if the middle seat on the last row of the airplane next to the bathroom becomes available. I could do this all day.
No one waiting at the gate said a word (except for loud phone talking guy who really never shuts the #### up). It was like not talking to a pitcher during a no-hitter. People stood with disbelief as the crew arrived and walked directly towards the ticket counter. “Good morning, Madge”, says the last flight attendant as they have their credentials scanned before disappearing around the corner of the dark jetway. “Well, it looks like the flight crew is all here… even the pilot” says Madge in a strange, unnecessary and raspy-foreboding-narrator-voice kind of way. Below the horizon of windows, a team loaded luggage into the belly of the plane with big friendly smiles on their faces, as one of them does a quirky little dance that a passenger presses their cell phone up against the window to record in the hopes of posting to social media as one of those hilarious viral tarmac employee videos.
No announcements of missing flight crews, dirty aircraft waiting for service, stuck jetways, late ground crews, delayed inbound aircraft, broken lavatories, dead engines or loose rabid squirrels on the plane. A choir sang off in the distance, and next to them, a Starbucks had decided to hand out free coffee and dollar bills in celebration. Some guy got caught up in the energy of the moment and proposed to the girl next to him with a luggage tag from his carry-on. As it turns out, they didn’t even know each other, and the girl said “no”, but she said it in such a kind and caring way.
An elderly woman burst into tears as her group was called to line up for pre-boarding. See she had lived her entire life for this day. The moment took her as well, and without knowing, she miraculously rose to her feet from her wheelchair. Others looking on started to slow clap, and soon the entire gate was on their feet cheering and hugging each other. Crowds from other neighboring gates came to look on in disbelief, as announcements rippled throughout the airport that the flight was now in the boarding process.
I don’t want to jinx this, but I’m about to board the FIRST EVER Smelta flight in my life that has been ON TIME!! My eyes are watering up a little as I write this. I can’t even wait until this appears in my Facebook memories feed 10 years from now, as I will look back on the only on-time Smelta flight I’ve ever been on. I imagine this making it on the news later today if all goes well.
I stayed seated at the gate in my seat, which is fused to all of the other seats at the gate until my group is called to line up, because I’m not a savage. As I approach Madge at the ticket scanner, I quickly shake the tears of joy off my boarding pass so that the barcode was visible. I hear the melodious beep of the scanner confirming my seat for a flight that was on time. The line of travelers leading to the door of the plane moved quickly and continuously. Everyone was excited. It was as though we were the winning World Series team walking into our locker room to celebrate. I ducked my head for absolutely no reason as I walked through the doorway of the plane and into the unfamiliarity of an on-time flight. The entire cabin of the plane seemed to glow. Overhead bin after overhead bin had inviting empty space that just screamed to each passenger to shove their luggage inside them.
I took to my seat, which somehow seemed lush and comfortable, and I was able to find the properly matching ends of my seat belt. The cold steel of the seat belt buckle gave a reassuring click as I began to stow my personal items underneath the seat in front of me. There was a calming spray of clouds coming from the plane’s air filtration system overhead, and the clouds danced across the top of the plane’s fuselage from luggage bin to luggage bin. The mist created a perfect environment for a rainbow. So help me, there was a ###ing RAINBOW inside my plane! And that rainbow was fitting in this situation, since I was apparently riding inside of a unicorn, also known as an on-time Smelta flight.
And then.
The voice of the pilot boomed down to the passengers from above…out of the clouds and rainbow. I had expected him to provide the typical pilot doldrums about how the weather was, how high we were going to fly, what route we would take, and how close we would be to our estimated arrival time when we land. But what came out of his mouth was NOT the typical pilot doldrums about how the weather was, how high we were going to fly, what route we would take, and how close we would be to our estimated arrival time when we land. Instead, what he said was the following:
“Well folks, it would appear as though we are delayed for takeoff. So our plan is that we’re gonna go ahead and push off on time, and then…probably…wait somewhere. We are getting some conflicting information between thirty to forty minutes. We will try and update you as to our actual departure time. Unfortunately, the lavatories on this plane are a little quirky, and will not work while we are on the ground.”
That last line was the cliff hanger, as the venti caramel cloud macchiato with extra espresso shot I drank more than an hour before the flight filtered through my kidneys. I gave an uncomfortable smile to the woman seated next to me as the airplane engines began to whine, and I unconsciously apologized to her for the flight delay.
“It’s not YOUR fault,” she reassured.
I gave an awkward chuckle and put on my “do not disturb” noise-cancelling headphones for the flight. Where exactly does a plane go to “hang out” for a while? A hangar? Do we just blend in with other planes at neighboring gates? Are we expected to hang out with only other Smelta Airlines planes, or are we allowed to mingle with some of the more punctual airlines? Do we lurk in the shadows near the large dumpsters like a creeper? Casually appear to be disinterested in taking off like an annoying hipster with a comfort animal parakeet until someone from the flight tower points a finger at us and says “You there! Either buy something or stop hanging around my airport!”?
Instead of all of the above viable options, we opted to “drive around” for a while. We made a few laps, and at one point I think the pilot was practicing his parallel parking. Several announcements were made on our leisurely drive around the airport instructing us to remain seated, and above all things announced, absolutely do NOT get up to use the airplane lavatories. I’m not sure if it was the coffee that finished processing in my body, or the sheer uncontrollable curiosity of what they were so worried about that would happen if someone were to use said lavatories, which made me desperate to get up and use the bathroom. Or both. I caught a quick flash in my mind of this leading me to become some sort of international incident, and so I focused my energy on not peeing myself. I mean, I suppose I put some level of effort in not peeing myself regardless the situation, but this time it put maximum not-peeing effort towards both myself and my surroundings.
30 minutes of non-peeing time went by, and a voice came over the plane intercom again. “Hey folks, good news is that we are now in line for take-off. Bad news is we are twelfth or so in line. We will get you up and do our best to make up the lost time.”
I hate playing “good news/bad news”! That’s not a game that should be allowed on an airplane. Then there’s this other comment that pilots make over the intercom always bothers me. The concept of “making up time”. Are you telling me that normally the pilots don’t make much of an effort into getting to the destination as quickly as possible? I mean, have we all been duped into assuming a 5 hour flight has to be a five hour flight, when it only REALLY takes four hours if the pilot would give it the old “college try”? Just how many hours of my life have been needlessly spent lollygagging along in an airplane that’s gliding at an idle thrust when the man in the cockpit just needed to give it a little gas? Conspiracy I tell you!
And so twelfth in line we sat. Better than thirteenth, I suppose. Believe me when I say that I’ve read this next chapter, which happens to be the thirteenth, and it sucks!
Oh wait, sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. I should tie up this chapter first with a proper ending. We waited for a very long time before finally taking off, and we made it to where I was supposed to go eventually. Or perhaps we crashed because of some freak malfunction with a lavatory that someone used on the ground without authorization, and I died… I can’t remember exactly.
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