It's my first wedding weekend of the year and I just missed my flight to San Francisco. I'd like to say that this is the first time in my life I've ever missed a flight, but my oft-inconvenienced parents would call bullshit on me. Not my fault this time. My itinerary said that the flight left at 3:30pm. After years of traveling with musicians, I've picked up the bad habit of not showing up at the airport till 1 hour before departure, even when I have a bag to check. This usually works out just fine -- I get to relax at home and spend as little time as humanly possible at the airport.
But when I got here at 2:30, I tried to check in and was told that it was too late, my flight was leaving at 2:55. I don't know how 2:55 means 3:30, which is what I printed out from my e-mail itinerary, but I basically had to get on a long ass line with the tourists to attempt to get on the next flight out, at 5:25pm.
I actually don't have too much trouble with waiting. I can go to my zen place as long as I've got a book to read (I brought The Rest is Noise), maybe a magazine (picked up The New Yorker this time, though I usually go with a mix of snortable fluff like Lucky and wordy human drama like Nat Geo), and a little candy (Raisinets are really doing it for me lately, which makes me feel even more like a grandma than I already do.)
The one thing I do resent is having to waste an entire meal at the airport. Given that I ate right before I left home, and that it will be another 9 hours before I get to San Francisco, I'm going to have to eat something. You know you're in a miserable place when a woman walks by with an Au Bon Pain coffee cup and you think to yourself, "Ooh, I wonder where she got that from?"
Wouldn't it be great if an airport food vendor decided one day to break the pact of mediocrity they all seem to agree to upon signing their leases? Here in the American Airlines terminal at JFK, there doesn't seem to be much of a difference between the Soho Express, the Euro Café and the Brooklyn Deli -- it's basically the same sorry menu of chips, underripe fruit, wet sandwiches, preternaturally perky romaine salads, and cut fruit that look like salmonella playgrounds.
And when did wraps become so ubiquitous and acceptable? There is so much wrong with a cold tortilla. Why not just wrap up your grilled chicken in ranch dressing-doused double-ply Charmin?
I still have a bit of post-9/11 flight anxiety. Sometimes I find myself thinking, what if this is it and the last taste in my mouth is this tempera paint-yellow mustard, waterlogged turkey and vermilion Dorito powder? Not that I would be giving a shit about my most recent meal, but you know, one thinks about these things. All this salt is going to make grandma grind her teeth all night.
Anyway, seems like this flight is all kinds of delayed. I'm grumps. I need to go do a few handstands or something.
*****
Of all the "how dumb are we" warnings they could be announcing over the loudspeaker at the airport, why does the "If any unknown person asks you to carry any unknown item onto the plane, do not accept it" one still get play? Is the general public really still that clueless, given that we're in a permastate of orange alert? I mean, if we're going to issue warnings for that, why not issue warnings like, "If the guy sitting next to you tries to light his shoe on fire, alert the stewardess"? Or, "If a bunch of angry young men with one-way tickets threaten to slit throats with boxcutters if you don't give them access to the cockpit, don't give in"?
But when I got here at 2:30, I tried to check in and was told that it was too late, my flight was leaving at 2:55. I don't know how 2:55 means 3:30, which is what I printed out from my e-mail itinerary, but I basically had to get on a long ass line with the tourists to attempt to get on the next flight out, at 5:25pm.
I actually don't have too much trouble with waiting. I can go to my zen place as long as I've got a book to read (I brought The Rest is Noise), maybe a magazine (picked up The New Yorker this time, though I usually go with a mix of snortable fluff like Lucky and wordy human drama like Nat Geo), and a little candy (Raisinets are really doing it for me lately, which makes me feel even more like a grandma than I already do.)
The one thing I do resent is having to waste an entire meal at the airport. Given that I ate right before I left home, and that it will be another 9 hours before I get to San Francisco, I'm going to have to eat something. You know you're in a miserable place when a woman walks by with an Au Bon Pain coffee cup and you think to yourself, "Ooh, I wonder where she got that from?"
Wouldn't it be great if an airport food vendor decided one day to break the pact of mediocrity they all seem to agree to upon signing their leases? Here in the American Airlines terminal at JFK, there doesn't seem to be much of a difference between the Soho Express, the Euro Café and the Brooklyn Deli -- it's basically the same sorry menu of chips, underripe fruit, wet sandwiches, preternaturally perky romaine salads, and cut fruit that look like salmonella playgrounds.
And when did wraps become so ubiquitous and acceptable? There is so much wrong with a cold tortilla. Why not just wrap up your grilled chicken in ranch dressing-doused double-ply Charmin?
I still have a bit of post-9/11 flight anxiety. Sometimes I find myself thinking, what if this is it and the last taste in my mouth is this tempera paint-yellow mustard, waterlogged turkey and vermilion Dorito powder? Not that I would be giving a shit about my most recent meal, but you know, one thinks about these things. All this salt is going to make grandma grind her teeth all night.
Anyway, seems like this flight is all kinds of delayed. I'm grumps. I need to go do a few handstands or something.
*****
Of all the "how dumb are we" warnings they could be announcing over the loudspeaker at the airport, why does the "If any unknown person asks you to carry any unknown item onto the plane, do not accept it" one still get play? Is the general public really still that clueless, given that we're in a permastate of orange alert? I mean, if we're going to issue warnings for that, why not issue warnings like, "If the guy sitting next to you tries to light his shoe on fire, alert the stewardess"? Or, "If a bunch of angry young men with one-way tickets threaten to slit throats with boxcutters if you don't give them access to the cockpit, don't give in"?
This makes me happy that I enjoy the airport - sitting at the bar and talking to fellow travelers, reading a good book, people watching galore. There's a really great food stand at JFK that has these little hummus cups with pretzels and a ton of healthy, fresh food. Not sure what terminal it's in though. Feel better!