The Aerie

Brains, Planes, and Cannibal Meals

With my trip to Stockholm only days away, I figured it was about time to post my promised account of my benighted trip to England in March. Like its brother in the disastrous-travel category, "I am the Smartest Moron in the World," it is too long and goes into way too much detail. But on the other hand, think of the value you're getting on a pennies-per-word basis, hm? Hard to beat...

Brains, Planes and Cannibal Meals
A drama in Three Flights

Cast (in order of appearance)

First Stranded Northwest Passenger...	...Me
Second Stranded Northwest Passenger...	...Stuart
Stranded American Airlines Passenger...	...Plunkett
Helpful, pissed-off Northwest Airlines Desk Clerk in Detroit...	...Montrese
Helpful Northwest Airlines Sidekick in Detroit...	...Michelle
Snotty British Airlines Desk Clerk in Detroit...	...Alicia
Snotty British Airlines Desk Manager in Detroit...	...Mohamed
Helpful British Airlines Desk Clerk in Boston...	...Tsion

The first sign of trouble came while I was still packing: my cell phone rang. An automated voice informed me that my 6:50 p.m. flight was being delayed until 7:42 p.m. My spouse had the kids at piano lessons until 5:00, so this delay conveniently allowed the family to give me a ride to the airport afterwards, but on the other hand this delay burned up half of the 90-minute layover scheduled in Detroit

There was nothing I could do about the situation, so I didn’t let myself worry about it, except to wonder on the trip to the airport whether or not I ought to check my larger bag, as planned. Normally I attempt to travel as close to Only One Small Bag as possible, but for this trip I had been provided teaching texts that weighed ten pounds or more, in addition to my laptop bag and its usual contents. No, I was going to at the very least have a large bag, and I decided to check it.

Check-in at the airport took little time – the pointless security kabuki had not changed since the last trip. I tried slipping through with my sneakers on like I had in the past, but no, I was told to remove my shoes. The fact that I had a miniature size tube of toothpaste in my pocket was ignored because nobody looked in my pocket: had it been in my carry-on it would of course have been confisticated.

With nearly all of my two pre-flight hours remaining, I took my time wandering down to the gate. Given the itinerary, there would be no food on the first flight, and with the flight delay there would be no time during the layover to grab any in Detroit. So I grabbed a burger and took my time eating it.

CNN was playing in the gate area, which struck me as an example of the institutionalized corporate fascism we’re living under these days. Dystopian science fiction likes to present Winston-Smith style mandatory programming: instead we have the same propaganda goals achieved under the guise of a friendly free form of “infotainment.” So I was forced to listen to the right-wing corporatist line on Iraq, and rehashes of Anna Nicole and her dead son. Has anyone since Princess Diana been so prohibited from resting in peace?

Finally some employees showed up at the gate desk and I went forward to ask about the flight delay. I learned in line that our plane had been delayed coming in from Alaska, and now they were looking for a flight crew. When my turn came I explained my dilemma regarding my connection to London, and was invited to join a fellow waiting impatiently at one end of the desk. A middle-aged businessman with graying dark-blond hair, Stuart was vibrating with impatience that threatened to shake his square spectacles off his nose. “Look, I’m trying to get home for my son’s birthday; you’re going to make me miss it.”

In contrast to Stuart, I couldn’t bring myself to muster too much concern over whether or not we made the connecting flight. No doubt part of my calm was because I had given myself a full extra day in which to arrive, but aside from that I was puzzled by my own refusal to become annoyed, or to even resonate with Stuart’s indignation.

The desk clerks were not immune to Stuart’s demands, and responded by sending some kind of airline-system text message ahead to warn the connecting flight that we were running late. Additionally they changed our seat assignments so that Stuart and I would be at the front of coach, ready to spring up on landing and crowd our way off the plane.

Paired up by circumstance, Stuart and I waited impatiently and without too much discussion as the gate agents prepared for the flight, and dealt with questions from passengers.

My own peace was disturbed by the arrival of a family of four: Mom, Dad, and two screaming toddlers. After they positioned themselves in the midst of the seating area I decided to move. As I passed the father, I asked “You’re not going to London, are you?” I could just picture myself trapped in coach with this family. “I wish,” was his exasperated reply. Satisfied, I took a spot on the floor next to a power outlet, wondering how many years it will be until airports provide power at the passenger seats.

Finally the processional of boarding got underway, a pointless queueing that I always delay until the last minute. Your seats are assigned, why stand in a line? I could wait beneath the blaring CNN screen until thirty seconds before the gate closed if I wanted. But no, like everyone else I was eventually overcome with some kind of pack-mentality anxiety – everyone else is in line, I’d better get in there too or the lions will single me out and drag me down! – and I got in line, albeit near the end.

Once aboard I was faced with a quandary – I wanted to get something accomplished and save my in-flight novel for breaks on my long connecting flight, but at the same time I didn’t want to waste my laptop battery with no opportunity to recharge it in Detroit. So I read my novel anyway, and made substantial progress before noticing that the plane still hadn’t moved.

Stuart was restless with irritation when the speakers finally crackled to life, and an attendant informed us that the pilots we were awaiting had at last arrived. More time passed. More book. After a wait as long as the first, one of our new pilots came on to inform us that there was a problem: while the plane now had pilots, the wait on the tarmac meant that the cabin crew had gone over its legally-mandated maximum of fourteen straight hours of work, and had to be replaced. Groans ran through the body of the jet as Stuart and the third fellow in our row discussed the logistics of the flight connection – if we left immediately, and we landed in the same wing of the terminal, we still might make it running flat out.

As the wait continued the crying began. However, in an astonishing twist, the family with the two crying children was NOT seated directly behind me in coach. Instead, the screaming was coming from First Class. Craning my neck, since I was only two rows back in coach, I could see the family – the kids were writhing with fury, and arms and legs began to poke up above the seat backs as the kids tried to escape. For the rest of the flight I enjoyed the screams of the kids trapped in First Class with their parents. Call it class-schadenfreude, but it always seems the screaming kids are back in coach.

I returned to my book and more time passed. The plane doors were opened and closed as flight crew swapped in and out, the newcomers arriving breathlessly with tales of last-minute pagings back to the airport. Outside the windows the sun had set before finally everyone was aboard. Stuart was tapping and fidgeting and looking out the windows, jumping once and saying “We’re moving” before he realized that a luggage cart was merely passing in the direction of the plane’s nose. For the third time the pilot told the attendants to lock and cross-check the doors, and finally came the thunks and thuds of the plane’s imminent departure. When the ground actually did start moving past the windows the plane burst in to spontaneous applause, happy to have been spared a full Jet Blue style hostage-taking.

I returned to my book as Stuart and the Third counted minutes and calculated our chances of changing planes in Detroit. So absorbed was I in the book that I actually didn’t notice when we left the ground – a first in flying for me. Takeoffs and landings being When Things Go Wrong If They’re Going To, I am usually as alert as a jackrabbit crossing a freeway as the wheels leave or touch the ground.

The flight passed quickly and uneventfully, except for the ongoing screaming fits from the kids in First Class. Half of the plane’s passengers seemed to be off-duty flight crews, so there was a lot of chatting between on- and off-duty staff, with the off-duty attendants ignoring seatbelt rules. The rest of us enjoyed generally bad service by people too busy talking shop to be bothered with the cattle in the seats.

Finally we landed in Detroit and Stuart, anxious as ever, managed to spot the British Airways jet through a window from his position in an aisle seat. It was still in place! The luggage cart was still engaged! Teasingly, our jet rolled closer and closer, finally passing behind the other jet and turning to park at the adjacent gate. Our hopes rose, especially when the jetway extended to join our plane, not where we had entered at the nose, but at the door directly in front of our seats! We could still make it!

The door was opened by a small woman who started visibly as we rushed past and ran pell-mell up the gangway. Our speed was for naught, however, because the door at the end of the tunnel was still locked and we couldn’t figure out how to get it open before she sauntered up to help us. “You headin’ for the British Air flight?” she asked, her eyes expressing skepticism. “I don’t think you gonna make it.”

Door opened we tore out, ran around the restrooms separating the gates (not without a wistful glance in their direction on my part) and into the British Air gate area.

Empty, door closed.

We pounded on the door. We pounded on the window glass. We could see runway crew working around the plane, but nobody seemed to notice us. As we banged and waved Stuart and I were joined by a young girl who seemed close to tears with frustration. Together we tried to open the door, causing its alarm to go off, but at this point we were desperate and the door didn’t actually open. “Don’t make me watch this plane leave!” Stuart yelled angrily.

I ran back to the original gate, and asked the attendant who had opened our door to phone the other gangway. At first she didn’t seem to know what to dial, but then she guessed at a number and spoke to someone on the ramp. “You got three people bangin’ at your door to get on the plane.”

I ran back while she was talking, certain that someone would at least come talk to us, but the door remained closed. I spotted a woman in Northwest Airlines overalls walking past in the hall and she said she was heading down to the tarmac and would tell someone of our plight. Minutes later she appeared below, and spoke one of the workers who had seemed oblivious to our banging and shouting. He didn’t respond or look up or give any indication either way that she had mentioned us, which I interpreted as deliberate on his part. When someone tells you “There are people at the window” the only reason you don’t look up at the window is if you’re very carefully avoiding doing so.

We could see the pilots in the cabin, but they too seemed disinclined to notice anything outside their windows. Finally our banging (specifically, my rapping on the glass with my wedding ring) caught the attention of a man on the tarmac below, but he could only shrug helplessly at our pantomimed pleas for assistance.

Finally a red light started spinning on top of a kind of tractor below as it began to push the plane back from the gateway. “That’s it,” Stuart groaned, “We’ve missed it.”

Crestfallen, we wandered back to the Northwest desk, where the short woman, whose badge told us was Montrese, was still working, along with another woman named Michelle.

Stuart controlled his temper only with great difficulty, repeating his demand to be flown home in time for his son’s birthday. Our new female companion wept openly, hands shaking, as she dialed her cell phone again and again, while Stuart explained our predicament. Northwest, he argued, had failed to get us to Detroit on time and needed to arrange other transport to get us to London. Montrese countered that it was British Air that had refused to open the door. “I spoke to someone on the tunnel,” she said, “they were hidin’ in there and they wouldn’t open the door.”

As she spoke, three women passed by in the main terminal hallway, dressed in British Air uniforms. Stuart and I ran after them. Of the three, Alicia very curtly told us that it was Northwest’s fault for not getting us there in time, and that we would have to take the issue up with Northwest. We ran back to Montrese, who was still on the phone with the young woman, whose name was Plunkett, and who had arrived not on Northwest but on American. Several more minutes passed while Montrese explained that, yes, we had arrived on Northwest, but the tickets were “issued on British Airways stock,” and our fate rested in British Airway’s hands.

But Montrese was both sympathetic and also rather angry on our behalf, and she called over to British Airways where she spoke to a manager named Mohamed. They had a long and quite heated discussion, during which Montrese again accused the BA gate attendants of hiding in the darkened gangway tunnel until their desperate customers had left the gate area, then trying to slip past unnoticed. In the course of the discussion her Detroit vernacular became quite heated, particularly when she objected to something Mohamed had said by saying she had been on this job for eleven years thank you and she knew a bit about how things were supposed to run.

Montrese rang off and explained to us that we’d have to take up our cause with Mohamed over at BA. She issued us hotel and breakfast vouchers, and her colleague Michelle offered to walk us over to the BA desk. Michelle led us through the now-darkened airport and Stuart commented incredulously at the notion of an international airport that did not run 24 hours. I noted with dismay as we left the security zone that we would have to go through another security check before re-entering.

Finally Michelle pointed the way to BA desks and departed. We walked over to the area. Nobody was there. Spirits sinking, I did the only thing I could think of and bellowed, “Hey, Mohamed!” Amazingly this worked, and the BA manager appeared, followed by another woman.

Mohamed seemed very dour and angry, informing us that none of this was BA’s fault, and Northwest was responsible for getting us here late. We insisted that we had arrived in time to be boarded, had anyone responded to our presence. The woman with Mohamed explained that she had walked past our gate as our plane arrived from Minneapolis and that the BA door had already been closed at that point and could not be re-opened. Then Alicia and her two colleagues emerged from the back, and Alicia revealed that she had been the person who took Montrese’s call to the gangway. There was nothing she could do at that point, she insisted. I pointed out that when our original plane was waiting for flight crew and attendants the door to the plane was repeatedly opened and closed, but the discussion was pointless. We wanted to know what to do next.

Through all this I had remained so calm that I was really getting puzzled. Stuart was fit to be tied, Plunkett was in tears, and I was standing quietly at the desk, watching the fireworks and interjecting fairly relaxed jokes. Why wasn’t I upset? These guys were talking about getting us into London via Gatwick at noon on Sunday, and I didn’t feel anything except a calm certainty that everything would work out.

Then I laughed out loud. “I know why I’m so calm,” I told Stuart. “Last summer I faced down the German Army and managed to bullshit my whole family past the Altenberg checkpoint in only three hours. Compared to that, this is a walk in the park.” Stuart was singularly unimpressed, which I could understand.

But it was true. These clerks and managers were not armed, as had been the German guards. The delay if we failed was only 24 hours, not a whole weekend. And I didn’t have my entire family looking to me to fix things or face the ruination of the whole trip. Twenty four hours in Detroit? It was an unpleasant prospect, but hardly a crisis, at least for me.

As it turned out, however, our delay was a disaster for Plunkett, because she was only planning on staying until Tuesday! This was her fourth visit to her Welsh fiancée since they met in Mexico on spring break a year past. Not only did her journey continue for several more hours after landing in London, but if she didn’t get a flight sooner than tomorrow, there was no point in going at all.

By now even more people had appeared, until eight or nine BA employees were crowded around three of the reservation terminals, trying to find us a route to England. “Does it look like we’re hiding now?” sneered Mohamed.

During most of the past hour Plunkett had been on her cell phone, crying periodically. When the BA personnel finally examined her situation it was the most unusual of all. Arriving late on American Airlines, she had been passed into the security area from a different terminal without a boarding pass, and told to obtain one at the BA gate desk before departure. The BA people were incensed, as this was apparently a violation of federal TSA laws, although as we all agreed the TSA laws and procedures are entirely useless. So Plunkett was neither a Northwest nor BA case, but it seemed easiest to just include her travel plans in those being debated at the three reservation terminals.

The prognosis there did not look good. The main connection-analyzer was a big nasal-voiced nerd to whom the matrons on the other terminals deferred with the kind of awe reserved for those who can program VCRs. He laid forth only terrible options: we could wait for the next BA flight from Detroit in 24 hours, or we could try to connect to Dulles or Newark in order to catch flights at 7:30 p.m. the next night, but if we did that we would not be flying BA. For some reason Mohamed offered to upgrade us to World Elite Plus class if we simply waited for the next flight at 11:30 p.m., but the offer did not appeal to any of us.

With finality the nasal-voiced Guru declared “Well, those are your only options” with the kind of disgusted finality that said he wanted to go home. But at the same moment the woman looking over his shoulder pointed at the screen and said “Wait a minute…”

As it turned out, the first flight out of Detroit the next morning left for Boston at 6:30 a.m. – or in just six hours. Sixty three minutes later a BA jet left Boston for Heathrow, arriving at 8:00 p.m. London time. Instead of 24 hours, we would only lose eight… as long as we could make the sixty-three minute connection window.

“You’ll never make it,” Mohamed groused, “Plunkett, you ought to just fly home and tell American Airlines to refund your ticket.”

Nothing steels a Juliet’s nerve like telling her she can’t have her Romeo. “I think we should try it,” she said firmly.

“If you miss the flight, the next one is at 7:00 p.m.” said the Guru, skeptically.

“Better than here,” Stuart pointed out astutely, “besides, 6:30 a.m. is the first flight of the day; it’s not likely to be delayed.”

“If I miss the flight I can always visit my sister,” I noted, “which is more than I can do here.”

Thus resolved, the question turned to luggage while the BA clerks put together our documentation. BA insisted that the luggage would be in Northwest’s possession downstairs, and advised us to leave it. If we claimed it out of luggage it would be impossible to leave security and check it during our single hour in Boston, and if it didn’t qualify as carry-on, we’d be out of luck. If we left it in the system it would eventually be routed to Heathrow and delivered to us, although we might have to go a second night in our travel clothing.

Plunkett was still involved in anxious conversations with American Airlines on her cell phone’s apparently limitless battery. I followed Stuart down to the luggage area with chivalrous misgivings over leaving the weeping young woman to the tender mercies of the grouchy Mohamed and his surly (and working overtime on our behalf) BA crew. As the elevator doors closed, I wondered if we’d ever see her again.

Downstairs Stuart and I found a prim, chubby, big-haired woman holding court in the luggage office in front of one of the ubiquitous flight terminals. Stuart was calmer but still agitated as he began speaking. “I know this is none of your fault of course,” he began, and I could tell it was a mistake by the way the woman’s gaze frosted up at the suggestion that what was to follow would be a complaint.

The ensuing discussion was giving me déjà vu until I realized who we were speaking to: none other than the nonfictional embodiment of the icily prim Rental Car Lady from “Planes, Tranes and Automobiles.” Always smiling, always proper, Luggage Lady nonetheless controlled the conversation with a frigid obtuseness – refusing to correctly interpret our questions, phrasing things with a careful vagueness so as to cause confusion, she seemed to be deliberately goading us (well Stuart at least) by answering questions other than those we asked.

For example, when Stuart asked “Where is our luggage?” she answered with a story about the imponderable complexities of the subterranean luggage sorting system. “What happens if we claim our luggage here?” was likewise answered with a tale of how we could fill out a description form and then, sometime in the imprecise future, somebody might go through a bin and maybe find it, or it might first be loaded on a plane for Heathrow.

Fortunately my brain started functioning briefly here, and realizing that she was toying with us I started to ask very focused yes/no questions. Grumpily she surrendered her game, doubtless because despite the incredibly late hour there was now someone in line behind us. We shortly came to the understanding that doing nothing, and letting our luggage make its own way to Heathrow, was probably the wisest course.

Weirdly, as we turned to leave, we passed the fellow behind us, who had a large old-fashioned leather suitcase, the top of which was embossed with the name “Gross & Plunkett.” Outside the luggage office we found our own Plunkett, still on the phone, but now in possession of something very special – a room voucher to the fancy hotel attached to the Detroit airport itself.

Stuart and I had examined our own Northwest Airlines provided vouchers, and were agreed that taking a shuttle bus to the discouragingly-named “America’s Best Value” motel was pointless. We would need to be back at the check in when it opened at 4:30 a.m. in order to make our 6:30 a.m. departure. So while Plunkett looked into her luggage, Stuart and I went off to find someplace to spend the next three hours. Wandering into the hotel, we were happy to learn that the hotel bar was still open for half an hour. Two sodas and a pizza later and we were beginning to feel sort of human again. The bar was entertaining, inasmuch as the barstools were occupied by buffoonish drunken businessmen loudly proclaiming their sports opinions and swearing eternal brotherhood.

While we were relaxing in the bar Plunkett arrived, having checked in to her fancy hotel room. Pizza was shared and we chatted for a while about things other than airline flight schedules, and then Plunkett invited us back to her room to await our flight. Inasmuch as we were not going to be sleeping but merely waiting two hours for the check in to open, this was a kind offer and we accepted eagerly.

The room was very fine, large and comfortable with a chaise longue in addition to the bed and an easy chair, meaning individual seats for everyone. We availed ourselves of the washroom and settled in to watch “Silence of the Lambs,” which happened to be starting on The Movie Channel. I plugged my electronic equipment together and commenced recharging the innumerable batteries in my innumerable electronic devices.

At the end of “Silence” Plunkett went to take a shower while Stuart gave me the remote control and I started flipping channels. Flick, flick, flick, and there was Ed Norton, talking to a punkish-looking woman with white hair. “Fight Club?” Stuart wondered, and we paused to watch it. The next scene: Anthony Hopkins, in a white T-shirt, in a brick and Plexiglas prison cell… could it be? USA network was showing the prequel, “Red Dragon!” It’s as if the TV had decided that we ought to have a Hannibal the Cannibal film-fest.

About the time that Philip Seymour Hoffman rolled flaming down the televised street, Stuart declared that the time had come to return to the check-in desks and get our tickets sorted out. We packed up our things and made our way back to the terminal. There we found that despite the hour we were not the first people waiting for the desks to open (although I hazard a guess that we had the least sleep). In front of us were great piles of luggage attended by several people.

The tall skinny family of five at the front of the line had three large items of luggage apiece. Shortly behind them, a black man with short wormy dreadlocks was using a tape gun to enclose a gigantic Target storage tub in a sort of cellophane cocoon. I shook my head and muttered “They’re just going to tear that thing open for inspection, and then how will it work?” In addition to his tub, he also had two gigantic items of conventional luggage. Apparently people have taken to moving their entire households in the luggage bins of commercial jetliners.

Eventually the desks opened and a clerk directed people to the open windows. We were directed to a spot right next to Wormy-hair Tub-luggage, and his interaction with the tiny Asian counter clerk had me wincing in embarrassment like an episode of ‘Fawlty Towers.’ He couldn’t understand her, and she couldn’t understand him – variously through either a failure of ESL on her part, or his mumbled, muttering replies.

She started weighing his luggage, and discovered that the tub was about five pounds too heavy for the 80-lb maximum to travel as luggage, but one of his other items was five pounds short of fifty lbs. Off came the tape, and he began juggling items between his luggage, being careful to never actually open any item wide enough for anyone to actually observe their contents.

While he spread this project out in front of her terminal, crowds of people struggled to filter past. When he’d finally redistributed his contraband for weight, the clerk then explained the charges: $80 total to ship the three heavy items, which was still probably a bargain over Fedex. He handed over his credit card. It was rejected. He reached into a pocket of his baggy pants, and pulled out a football-sized wad of cash and started handing over money, which elicited a panic of hand-waving objections from the Chinese clerk.

While all this was going on, our clerk was ponderously making his way through the people prior to us. The fellow had a giant shiny bald head, combed over with a few desperate wisps of hair that only served to emphasize its size and baldness. Despite the enormity of his cranium, it didn’t seem to function well: each key on his keyboard was a new discovery, and every time through the check-in process seemed to be his first. After an appalling length of time he finally got to We Three Refugees. First he processed Stuart’s information one… key… stroke… at… a… time… Then finishing with me, he started on Plunkett.

Stuart had departed as soon as the clerk handed him his boarding pass, racing back-and-forth through the security ropes to get to the end of the very short security line. I had felt guilty enough leaving Plunkett behind last night (especially following her subsequent hospitality) that when I had my pass in hand I decided to wait for her. I stood watching the Big Giant Head as he discovered the A, S and D keys for the first time and worked on Plunkett’s boarding pass. I looked back at Security, still no line.

Then, as I watched, the airport doors opened and a gigantic throng of people marched in, and straight into the security line. From only minutes in length, the back-and-forth rope line filled and filled and filled until a good half hour stood between us and the gate.

The Big Giant Head finished with her ticket, and Plunkett and I took our places in the long line and waited, and waited. Finally we reached the head of the line, where I handed my pass to some kid in a jacket.

”Please step this way, you have been randomly selected for enhanced security screening…”

AAARGH!

Both of us were picked out, undoubtedly due to the “random” process of a symbol being printed on our boarding passes. Everything was emptied from our bags, everything loaded back in. Visions passed before my eyes of yet another British Airways jet backing away from the ring-scratched glass of the gate.

Finally we passed muster, and were allowed to bundle our scattered possessions back together. We hustled our way to the gate, relieved to see our plane in place and the door mercifully open. Boarding was already well advanced, so very shortly were airborne and on our way to Boston. Fortunately the plane was lightly loaded, allowing me the first chance I’ve ever had to spread out across three seats and take a nap on a plane. I caught a few winks, but my sleep schedule was so screwed up by this point that I spent most of the trip awake.

Coming into Boston at sunrise was fun. The sun glinted off the ocean and all the buildings as we circled once overhead, and then came into a landing at Boston Logan. One of the passengers was a frequent flyer, and he offered our trio tips on how to make our way to our British Airways flight through the airport without having to out through security again.

Walking rapidly the three of us plowed our way across the busy airport to the British Airways gate, where we explained our plight to a lovely young lady named Tsion. Stuart movingly described how important it was for him to get home with his son’s birthday gift. Tsion promised to do her best on our behalf, and we then waited for a tense half-hour to see what would transpire.

Fortunately at one point during our wait I visited the men’s room, where a British Airways employee with a walkie-talkie on his belt was washing up. Through its open speaker I was able to listen to Tsion speaking with someone else in the airport about our tickets, so I had a strong hint that we were going to find seats on this flight.

To our delight, not only did Tsion arrive to hand us our boarding passes, but she bumped us up to Business class for our troubles – the same World Elite Plus with which Mohamed had tried to convince us to spend a day in Detroit. I was so excited that I wanted to hug her, and we boarded the jet in high spirits. “This is great,” I told Stuart, “we’ll be home in time for your son’s birthday.”

“It’s not my kid’s birthday,” he replied casually, “I just said that to get on the plane.”

I learn at the feet of the master.

The British Airways plane was much more posh than its bankrupt Northwest Airlines counterparts. It looked newer, and still had a touch of that “new jet” smell. First Class was weird, however. Usually we in steerage reach our section by sidling between columns of wide First-class leather seats, while small smug smiles play over the faces of their occupants, who studiously avoid eye contact.

But First Class on this flight had been taken over by pod-people: weird pairs of oval pods that looked like a cross between a Jacuzzi and a fighter cockpit were scattered at seeming random all over the floor. The pairs faced each other like loveseats, head to toe, with a kind of fan-fold screen between the seats in case your neighbor’s visage was not to your liking. I could tell just by looking that the people who sat down in these pods at the start of the voyage would be consumed during the flight and replaced with mind-controlled alien clones bent on controlling the Earth. I thanked my lucky stars that I hadn’t been bumped to First Class.

I slipped quickly back into Business class, where I found a woman already in my spot. She was quite pleased to discover that my arrival bumped her into First Class, but I knew better. I felt sad to know that she would be replaced with some kind of alien Stepford robot at the end of the flight, and tried nobly to volunteer to take my chances in the First Class pods, but she would have none of it.

So I was seated in the back of Business class by myself (well, I was sitting next to a fellow who, after I introduced myself, spoke not a word for the rest of the flight), while Stuart and Plunkett were seated together in the front row. Fortunately I kept myself occupied typing up this record of our travels.

By the time we arrived in London the six-hour time difference meant that it was night – eight p.m. or so. The three of us regrouped and staggered down to baggage claim, however along the way we lost Plunkett someplace. Stuart and I we were unsurprised to discover our bags had not accompanied us. So we stumbled over to the customer service counter and filled out forms for missing luggage.

By the time I finished mine, Stuart was gone. I wandered around a little while but did not see him again, which was a pity because I wanted to say goodbye and to thank him – his persistence had been part of our success in reaching London with only an eight-hour delay. I then wandered out into baggage claim and tried to figure out how to reach my hotel.

Unfortunately despite calling ahead from Boston, my promised ride was not present, nor did they answer their phones. I called the hotel, where I was told that a cab would cost me twenty five pounds, or fifty U.S. dollars. I wasn’t prepared to pay that, so I determined to figure out the transit system and take a bus to the hotel.

After wandering in search of the right bus out of the dozens waiting I went back in to the information desk, and while I was waiting for the clerks I spotted Plunkett emerging from the baggage claim. Apparently she had wandered out through security before finding baggage claim, and had to get back in – making it twice on this journey that she managed to get through security without a boarding pass for a flight. Impressive!

Greeting her was her Welsh boyfriend whom she had feared would not be able to pick her up for hours, so I got to meet him and witness their happy reunion. After all the anxiety she had suffered back in Detroit, it was charming to see her transformed, with a huge smile on her face, holding her fiancée by both hands. What Shane thought of this shabby old stranger looming in a proprietary fashion around his fiancée I could not tell, but he was quite polite and obviously happy to have his girlfriend in hand after a long and arduous journey.

So I set forth, bleary and disheveled, to make my way to my hotel. It was by now about 9:00 p.m., 3:00 p.m. back in Minnesota, and except for a brief nap on the Boston flight I had not slept for over thirty hours. I managed to catch a bus to a town called Felton, and from Felton I caught another bus to the train station. The train eventually reached my destination in Chertsey, and there I was at a loss. I knew the hotel was on the northeast end of town, and the train station was central, but I did not know how to get to the hotel.

By some wild stroke of luck, however, there was an open taxi company across the street, and even more luckily, another fellow bound for my hotel was grabbing a cab when I approached. We agreed to split the fare, and a few minutes later he was letting me into the closed hotel lobby with his key. Without him who knows how I would have gained entrance?

Two buses, a train, and a cab later I had reached the hotel having spent less than ten pounds, rather than twenty five. I’m not sure if it was worth it!

Someone was found to let me into my room, and at about 11:00 p.m., after 24 hours of travel, I flopped unconscious into my hotel bed, anticipating donning the same clothes in the morning that I had been wearing all along.

The next day I spoke to British Air, which advised me to replace my lost clothing at their expense and to submit the receipts for reimbursement. We’ll see how that turns out. [Update 07/10/2007: Actually, I faxed my receipts to British Air along with a cover letter, and was paid in full within a few weeks!] Replacing my lost clothing on a Sunday afternoon required shopping in London itself, with the result that a pair of pants, three shirts, shoes, underwear and a tie, came to about 250 pounds or $500. And that was shopping cheap – I did NOT buy the 120 pound pants, and I got my shirts two-for-one.

The week-long class went well, and I spent Saturday touring London on foot, riding the Eye, and stumbling accidentally into the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace exactly as I had twenty years ago. Sunday I left really early for the airport in a cab, there being no train service sufficiently early to get me to Heathrow, even were I inclined to try that route again.

When I got to the counter the clerk said “I’m sorry, I have no record of you being on this flight.” Apparently when I didn’t make the original BA outbound flight, they had automatically cancelled my return flight… without, say, sending me an e-mail notification or anything. So there I was on April Fool’s Day, standing in Heathrow airport, having tipped my cabbie with my last British pound, and no apparent means of getting home to America.

But that’s another story.

Posted by Albatross at May 1, 2007 10:40 AM | TrackBack