I had to fly to Denver. I haven’t flown in years and a lot of things have changed. Checked into Ameritran, gave the security guy my computer (everyone carries computers on planes). I dropped all my personal stuff and stepped into a little tunnel that blasted air all over my body looking for air pockets or something. “The guys usually like it,” the security guy said. I’m sure there was a sexual connotation there but it didn’t stimulate anything in me. Another security guy asked for a photo id.
“Funny, you don’t look like Dennis Miller,” he said. This the 1150th time I’ve heard a variant of this.
“I’m better looking,” I said with one of my 10 canned responses.
“Yes, I was going to say that.”
“I thought so.”
I was chosen for a random detailed search of my computer and shoulder bag. “Did I do anything to win this special attention?”
“Nope,” the young security guard said. “Random computer spit out.” He held up The Da Vinci Code. “Are you enjoying this?”
I nodded. “Yes. It’s really good. Did you read it?”
He nodded. “Yeah and the book before that.”
“Angels and Demons.”
“Yeah.”
Say what you want about The Da Vinci Code’s premise but it has created a lot of new readers.
I found the departure gate and sat, not wanting to be late. I was actually two hours early. After waiting two hours, a Ameritran lady announced that the flights were backed up in Atlanta, ur destination, and we would leaving a half hour late. I looked at my schedule. I had exactly one hour to catch my connecting flight in Atlanta. I continued reading The Da Vinci Code which, after three years of hype, I figured was a firm chunk of pop culture and I had to be part of it.
We finally boarded. I had a seat by the emergency exit right over the left wing. The flight attendant came over and said. “Are you familiar with the procedure to take off the door in an emergency?” I lied and said yes. “Are you willing to take responsibility of helping others out in case of an emergency? I said yes, thinking, I’ve got the door and if we crash and I’m still alive and able to move, I’m the one who gets to remove the door and be the first one out? Hell, yes, I’ll take it. If we go down I can literally be acting on a wing and a prayer!
We arrived in Atlanta 40 minutes late. I rushed off the plane, like everyone else who was late, and found Gate 13. A big sign announced that our flight departure terminal had been moved to 20. I had 10 minutes before the plane was scheduled to leave. I ran down the terminal with my computer and my shoulder bag feeling like a dumb character in a cheap movie, and found Gate 20. A big sign said departure time was 25 minutes late.
Two women and a man were behind the desk, laughing and joking. They appeared to be the rare pros who can work and have fun at the same time. I had time to kill so I found a store with an overpriced power bar and had my first meal since breakfast. I read more Da Vinci Code.
I pilot came through, went up to the large viewing window and shook his head. “I need a plane.” He turned to a passenger. “There’s no plane out there. I need a plane to fly.” I didn’t take this as a good omen. The second pilot appeared. “We don’t have a plane,” the first one said. The other guy nodded as if to say, “a plane always appears. Somehow we always have a plane to fly.” They disappeared.
By now there was a large crowd of waiting passangers, white, black, Asian, a skinny elderly Korean woman in a wheelchair pushed by her husband. Neither could speak English. A young fellow from Thailand who couldn’t speak English. I stopped worrying. If they can travel around the world and not speak the languages, I should be in good shape.
A flight attendant strode in with her bag. Ten minutes later, the fellow behind the desk, an African American who you could tell, lived for his job, picked up the microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen, the good news is we have a pilot and copilot and one flight attendant. We need three. We’re looking for the other two.”
the first pilot came out of the passageway and said, “We have a plane.” He seemed really relieved.
No plane and missing flight attendants. This was going beyond omen into the absurd. I didn’t think it was really a good idea to tell passengers you can’t find your flight attendants. I watched the three employees pull their phones out and begin calling. Ten minutes later the fellow came back on and said, “We’re still looking for our attendants. Our internal system isn’t working so we’re using our cell phones to try to find them.”
Well, he’s nothing if not honest. Finally a second attendant came in and there was mild applause. We were now 40 minutes late. Five minutes later the third one appeared. She was the winner! The missing piece that put the whole puzzle together and could literally make us fly! There was a huge round of applause which took her by surprise. She apparently didn’t know she had been holding up 200 people from getting to their places around the United States.
The announcer put us in groups and took our passes. At one point he hollered to a guy, then chased him. He brought the embarrassed teen back out. “You want to go to Vegas,” he said. “That’s the next terminal. You were this close to going to Denver.”
I had 4 1/2 hours to drink water, eat a tiny bag of pretzels and read 200 pages of The Da Vinci Code. We landed, I took a train to the baggage pickup, met my crew and went to get my bag. I realized then that I had borrowed the bag, didn’t really look at it and forgot what it looked like. I knew it was black.
A full 80 percent of luggage bags are black.