After thanking my host for putting me up in his Costa Rican home for a week, I climbed into my Uber and began my journey away from sun, surf, margaritas and back to the real world. If I knew what lay ahead of me, I would’ve stayed and applied for asylum.
The departure area of Liberia Airport was packed with passengers and every seat at every gate was claimed. The same with every barstool, restaurant chair and every patch of sittable floor space. With two hours until my flight, I knew standing around all that time would aggravate my sciatica and turn my demonically cramped economy seat into a torture chamber. Aggravated, I prowled around until I found two empty perches far from my flight’s gate but, just as I put my bag on the ground, a guy swooped in, placed his carry-on bag on one seat and his ass on the other.
“I was going to sit there,” I said. Since the man didn’t deem me worthy of a response, I took his bag, placed it at his feet, and then sat down next to him. “We can share,” I said, smiling. Without looking at me, the man grabbed his luggage and walked away. I guess he flunked kindergarten. Shrugging, I opened up my e-reader and lost myself in a detective novel until my flight was called.
“This flight is full,” the purser said over the intercom. “Please remember you are only allowed one carry-on per person and one personal item which must be stowed under your seat. Additional items have to be checked at the gate.” It’s been my experience that nice normal people become greedy territory hogging assholes when it comes grabbing overhead space so, in an attempt to keep the buzz from of my Central American vacation from dissipating prematurely, I decided to skip the luggage rugby scrum and check my bag with the purser. “Thank you, sir,” she said. “I appreciate it.” And, since I was the ONLY passenger who did this, she let me board right after the wheelchair bound and first class swells as a reward.
Watching from my aisle seat as people tried Tetrising all their shit into the overheads, I could feel the competitive heat radiating off them like the tropical sun baking the tarmac outside. And when the flight attendants caught someone trying to stow extra bags, I think the only think that stopped them from punching the stewards was the thought of incarceration in a Latin American jail or being duct taped to their seat for the entire flight. The bad behavior went up another notch because, after everyone was belted in and the safety video began trying to convince us that an uncontrolled decent into the ocean was survivable, the girl in the window seat next to me began shrieking uncontrollably.
Judging from her boyfriend’s stiff posture in the middle seat, I figured I was witnessing a relationship drama or a breakup. Between the drone of the aircraft and my bad hearing, however, I couldn’t make out what the girl was saying and didn’t want to. Replacing my hearing aids with noise canceling headphones, I tried to tune the girl out, but her hysterical sobs still managed to break through my digital defenses. Sighing, I wondered if I should intervene but then said, “Fuck it. I ain’t getting paid to deal with this shit.” So, I just opened up my e-reader and tried losing myself in Travis McGee’s attempts to break up a murder ring whilst swilling gin on his Florida berthed houseboat, The Busted Flush. After forty-five minutes and no sign of the emotional storm abating, I gave up and headed to the bathroom. “You okay over there?” a flight attendant asked.
“I’m fine,” I said. “I listen to this kind of crap for a living.”
After completing my ablutions and wondering how anyone could find sexual congress desirable in such a cramped space, I chatted with the stewards, did calf raises to ward off deep vein thrombosis, gazed through the porthole at the cerulean hues of the Caribbean Sea, and then returned to my seat. As I sat down I looked at girl’s pinched, red face and quietly telepathed, “Enough is enough young lady.” I think she got the message because, a few minutes later, she was fast asleep on her boyfriend’s shoulder. Ah, young love. I don’t miss it one bit. Then again, when I was their age, I probably thought the “Mile High Club” was a doable thing.
When we landed in Houston my opinion of the couple furthered soured when the young man said to me, “Can we go ahead of you, sir? We have a connecting flight and want to get something to eat.” Rolling my eyes, I let them out first but, to the couple’s chagrin, no one else let then advance a step further as the plane emptied out in proper everyone take your turn fashion. Chomping at the bit, the boyfriend looked at the airline app on his phone, and to my dismay, I could see over his shoulder they were on my connecting flight to Newark. Goddammit. If the girl acted up again, I wondered if I could slap her and then have all the passengers follow on with fists, boxing gloves, baseball bats, pipe wrenches, and a revolver. Where’s a violent Hare Krishna when you need one?
George Bush InterContinental Airport was a nightmare. Already the media poster boy for long TSA lines due to the funding freeze, the place was pure bedlam. Heading toward immigration I got in the line for U.S. passport holders and said a silent prayer for everyone queuing on the other, much less friendly line. After getting my face scanned to assure ICE I was indeed a bona-fide citizen, I discovered, much to my dismay, that I was no longer in the secure area of the airport and had to go through TSA again. If I had to wait the advertised four hours, I’d miss my flight – but luckily connecting flights got shunted to a separate line which only took thirty minutes. Looking at the shell shocked people just getting to the head of their line after hours of waiting, they looked like war torn villagers who’d just had their abodes blasted back to Stone Age.
Since I did not have access to the free eats in the bespoke lounge my wife enjoys with her favored status traveler credit card, I grabbed a usuriously expensive beer and burger on a restaurant stool and noted with annoyance that my winsome waitress with the aggressively fake smile had automaticity tacked an 18% tip onto to my bill – but I knew nothing fancier than pretzels would be served on my connecting flight and least the burger was good. Fortified and slightly anesthetized, I made my way to my gate.
After listening to the full flight and carry-on admonition again, I boarded the plane, found my aisle seat, and watched yet again as people clubbed each other in an effort not to be delayed at the baggage claim after landing for a single fraction of a second. “These people have seen Up in The Air too many times,” I thought to myself. Spying the offending young couple from the previous trip making their way down the aisle, I braced myself for more drama only to discover, to my infinite relief, that they were sitting in the row opposite mine. Of course, someone worse just had to sit next to me.
The guy was the size of LeBron James, and his lady friend was equally as large, just in another dimension. As they wedged themselves into their cramped seats, I knew I was in for an uncomfortable flight. Not to be mean, but the lady’s bulk spilled over the armrests and, in an effort to bypass the personal item rule, she had stuffed five bags into one big one which ended up trespassing on my scant bit of legroom. But the best was yet to come.
“Excuse me,” an old woman gripping an antediluvian paper ticket said to LeBron’s girl, “But I believe you’re sitting in my seat.”
“I SUFFER FROM AN ANXIETY DISORDER,” my seatmate bellowed. “AND IF I CAN’T SIT NEXT TO MY MAN, I WILL HAVE A PANIC ATTACK!”
This outburst, of course, drew the immediate attention of the flight attendants who, after some quick negotiations, sat the old woman in an aisle seat next to the drama couple in the opposite row. Aisle seat instead of the middle? If it wasn’t for those kooky kids, the woman might’ve made out on the deal. “Good luck,” the old woman said to me as she buckled herself in. “You’re gonna need it.” Feeling LeBron’s girlfriend tense up next to me in response, I decided not to reply, knowing her boyfriend could easily stuff me into that tiny trash receptacle in the lavatory. As the plane took off, I braced myself for an emotional storm as the woman buried her face into her beau’s chest and began shaking like palm tree in a hurricane. Thankfully she kept it mostly together.
The moment we hit our cruising altitude, the girlfriend dug into her sack and began pulling out Tupperware container after container of pungent smelling food which the couple tore into with gusto. Not that blamed them, airline food is overpriced but, as their slurping, munching and belching cut through my deafness and the airplane noise, I began to wonder if I was developing a case of late onset misophonia. After the couple finally sated their gustatory needs and stowed their greasy containers, they doused the overhead lights and – blessedly – went to sleep. Thank you Jesus. Returning to the prose of John D. MacDonald, I tried to ignore the burning of my overstressed sciatic nerve and get through the rest of my fight in peace. Alas, that was not to be.
Somewhere above Cleveland, just as Travis McGee and his sidekick Meyer were about to put the bad guys away, fingers the size of hotdogs began gently caressing my face. Thankfully years of dealing with wackos kept me from freaking out and give my brain time to figure out what was happening. LeBron was dozing by the window with his arm around his girl and must’ve sleepily mistaken my face for hers. Either that or I’m far more attractive than I give myself credit for. Gently pulling LeBron’s fingers off my face, I gave them a gentle squeeze and roused the sleeping giant from his slumber.
“Dude,” I said.
“Oh, shit man,” LeBron said. “I’m so sorry.”
“No worries.”
Reflecting on my return trip as we left Ohio airspace, I was reminded of a videotaped exchange between a reporter and the deranged mega church pastor Kenneth Copeland as she questioned his exclusive use of private jets for travel. “A lot of people,” she said, “Think it’s unbecoming for a preacher to live a life of luxury and to fly around in private jets.”
“It takes a lot of money to do what we do,” Copeland replied.
“You said you don’t like to fly commercial because you don’t want to get into a tube with a bunch demons. Do you really believe that human beings are demons?”
“No, I do not,” sputtered Copeland, pointing at the reporter with a demonic look in his eyes that made my thousand yard stare look like Tinkerbell’s. “And don’t you ever say I did!” Then the video jumped to a previous recording of Copeland holding court with his obsequious acolytes while he smugly crowed, “Get in a (plane) …get in a long tube with demons!” Now, I don’t like Copeland one bit but, considering my latest aviation adventure, I had to concede he might’ve had a point. Later, as Ms. LeBron begin to shake during our descent into Newark, I silently prayed:
“Get thee behind me Satan.”