Every 15 minutes another half hour customer call… backing up and over loading my voicemail. The constant 2nd line beeps and stress was mounting as I struggle to handle the volume of inbound requests. I had a “hard stop” at 3:30 and scooped all my gear into the computer back in one grasp. Spiraling down the staircase, holding a bag of chips n salsa from lunch, my work gear in the other, I rushed to met my girl and catch a train for my “secret” trip to the bay area…
This was the surprise trip home I had set up months in advance with her friends back in San Jose and her mile stone birthday, 25. Coordinating a get-together with her friends, and with most groups is a pain but making sure everyone’s in town, getting them all to be in the same spot in one time and just participating in the coordination is a nightmare. After a while, I passed the baton to one of her good friends and just made the commitment I would get her to the party. The surprise of course never materialized at the airport terminal like I had planned, mark that one up to her constant picking and nagging like a child in Toys R US weeks before Christmas.
Sprinting home in 85 degree heat, 95% humidity and flash thunderstorms, I’m taking on water more from my over extended pores than the deepening sidewalk puddles. I’m cold-blooded and 85 in California can make me sweat but today I was losing 4 lbs. before making it to the 6 floor walk up.
I always forget a few things in such a rush but I know we remembered the essentials and headed down to the A train, our destination was JFK via Howard Beach Airtrain. She kept looking at me saying “we should have taken a cab” but my legacy KC watch said 4:30 and we had plenty of time to make it to the gate. We were riding the express A train through Brooklyn and I over heard someone comment “this train is like a refugee shuttle”… I’ve never experienced a camp personally but if it’s like having a full mix of different sized, colored, and strongly smelling people sardined into one car for 45 min then this is just like immigration.
We got to the terminal… dip the credit card at the AirTrain ticket machine…no-no-yes-boarding pass-double time the escalator-cut the line of 20 already disgruntled travels-shove all my metal into my most easily accessible of computer bag pockets at the same time I’m untying my shoes-laptop out-breath-walk non threateningly through security gates with boarding pass-lace up-sprint to gate 7 to make our flight by 15 minutes….huff-huff-huff-huff-huffffffffffffff……
Wait…. its exceptionally crowded at the gate and the first thing I notice is the fans and unlike our subway ride, the terminal air temp is MUCH hotter. Then I notice these people are ready to head to CA but are not on the plane. I approach the gate counter, a warning ominously blinks on the board… D… DEL….DELAYED.
Fuck!
I finally have a moment to shoulder my brow sweat and assess my situation. All the gates are full with frowning not so soon to be passengers, each vying for the next seats out of New York as they too are delayed. Next food court but there’s a line outside the New York Sports Grill 10 deep. Both mens and womens bathrooms backed up with reluctant travelers not wanting to experience the capacity overloaded stalls.
We knew there was a storm on the horizon but assumed prematurely the nor-easter would not effect Chicago and the midwest flight plans as to carry over to the Northeastern ports… The boards are showing us our flight is 5 hours delayed and now we’re stuck in Terminal hell. What else to do but to check the internet or goof with some puddy and take down some sake at the sushi bar!!!
It’s been 3 hours and we’ve expended the majority of our comedy and patience. People are irritable, arguing with the staff and getting screwed with their travel arrangements. Flights are canceling and the chance of ours dying on the tarmac is growing more realistic. The girl is sleeping and I’m fighting with other electronic device commissioned passengers for power plug space. Finally we get the announcement, it’s a few minutes past 10 pm and I’m closing this one up… I do hope I make it on and out.
UPDATE: We made it to Oakland, it was 2 am when we finally landed, almost 7 hours after we should have. At least Jetblue trys to flater us along the way:
