Travels With Mike

Planes, Pains and Automobiles

by Mike Rank | September 17, 2001 This is how I looked after being stuck in the airport. Wish I had a good book to read. Crap! I could have just bought a book down here! Before I began to travel regularly for business, you might have been able to convince me that getting there truly was half the fun. Now that I'm weathered and wiser, I know the truth. After being in Alabama for a week, I was sad to leave, but happy to be heading back home. After a hearty lunch at the Dreamland Barbecue in Tuscaloosa, it was time for me to begin my trek back home. I anxiously anticipated meeting some friends during my Chicago layover for a few drinks, then heading back to Los Angeles to rest for the weekend. From here, all of my troubles began. Friday Afternoon, 1:55 P.M. Central Time. I depart from my job site to make the trek up to the Birmingham airport to catch my 3:45 flight. I'm in a bit of panic, since it's 50 miles to the airport and I've never been there, having flown into Atlanta. By the time I get to the airport exit, it's already 3:05. While filling up the rental car, I get yelled at again by the clerks in the station for using the women's restroom. I tried to explain in my best Forrest Gump voice that "I had to go pee", which only infuriated them more. I rush to the airport and turn in the rental to a sweet woman who sent every customer off saying "May Jesus Bless your day". I make it to the gate with ten minutes to spare, only to find the flight has been delayed twenty minutes. Once on board, I sit next to a lady, who informs me in conversation that she's from Canada. I tell her I thought she looked Canadian. When she asks me what that means, I tell her I don't know & ask her if she has a Jelly Donut. We don't talk the rest of the flight. Friday Evening 6:20 Eastern Time. My plane lands in Cincinnati. I have 20 minutes to make a 6:40 connecting flight to Chicago, which will take me back to LA With bags in tow, I desperately flail through the terminal with such speed and grace that even a Special Olympic gold medallist would be in awe. I arrive at the gate with five minutes to spare, only to find weather has delayed the flight until 8:30. Quickly, I make new friends at the bar and between round we take turns going to check at the gate, where the departure time fluctuates between 8:30 and 10:30. Somewhere after the 7th or 8th round, they finally let us onto the plane. Friday night 9:45 Central Time. I arrive in Chicago and have missed my flight. There's not another one until 8:40 A.M. Not a problem. I call up some friends, they give me directions to come meet them. I wait almost 40 minutes for a cab and tell him where I'm going. We drive off the airport and he pulls over, calling on his cell phone for directions in a language I don't understand. After ten minutes, I tell him if he has no idea where he's going to take me back to the airport. He begins yelling at me in Pakistani (I think?), so I swear at him back in Spanish. He takes me back to the airport and I decide to just get a hotel. I hop in another cab, where the driver yells at me the entire way because he'd been waiting for a fare for an hour and I only want to go ten miles away. Friday night, 12:00 A.M. I arrive at the Holiday in, tired, sweaty and defeated. I check into my room and take a nice, hot shower. Some genius designed the bathroom so the shower floor is flush with the bathroom floor, allowing me to flood the entire bathroom. I go to grab some towels to absorb the mess, but I slip and grab the sink for support and end up tearing it out of the wall. Fortunately, no plumbing was damaged and I think I wasn't the first to do this, so I positioned it back in place and all was well. I went to bed around 1:30 A.M. Saturday Morning, 6:00 A.M. I wake and prepare for the trip home. The shuttle driver shows up drunk and has to kick the van doors open to let us in. He spills most of his coffee on his lap during the trip there and tells stories that don't make sense. While checking in, I'm next to an English gentleman who is yelling at the clerk because his ticket never specified that his plane leaves at 8:00 P.M., not A.M. like he believed. I headed to Mc Donald's for breakfast, spending five minutes yelling at the cashier I wanted a sausage and egg mcmuffin, only to have her stare at me blankly and murmur "soosamamoosa?" Finally, I pointed to the picture and her eyes lit up with joyful recognition as she exclaimed "Oh! You wanna Mc soosamamoosa!" Saturday Morning, 8:40 A.M. My plane departs. I'm sitting next to a nice, elderly Puerto Rican gentleman who looks out the window every five minutes and gives me a play-by-play of the scenery. In front of me is a family of six, with three of the kids under the age of five. The middle child stands up every half and hour or so to stare at me while she picks her nose and eats it (Honestly, it probably tasted no worse than the in-flight snack they served us). The younger ones cry the entire flight, fighting over who sits on mommy's lap. With runway delays and headwinds, the trip only lasts a mere four hours and thirty two minutes. I arrive at the airpot parking lot just a little before noon. I had already made arrangements two drive two hours north to Santa Barbara in order to celebrate my mom's birthday at my Sister's. We met up at the California Pizza Kitchen, a family tradition, and I partook of something there that gave me some of the most horrible gas ever. It wouldn't have been such a problem normally, but I had agreed to go furniture shopping with the family and was trapped in the store. I frantically shuffled from one side of the store to the other, depositing little bundles of joy and then dispersing before I was named as the culprit. As the store attracted more customers, I was forced to get creative and find ways to position myself against furniture and blow ass into the drawers, hoping to mask the bulk of my foul aroma. I would open a large dresser or cabinet, then turn my back against the unit and pretend I was examining the inside of the unit's doors. After breaking wind, I'd slam the doors shut and sulk away, making sure no one saw me. It appeared to be working, until I was ambushed by a couple who snuck up on me as I was "examining" an Entertainment Center. I walked past them as they opened the cabinet doors and let out a gasp, followed by a "Jesus Christ, did someone die in this thing?" Yes, someone did. I thought that my 48 hours of hell was quite possibly the worst trip ever. I held that belief for almost three days, until I woke up in a Seattle hotel room that following Tuesday morning and turned on the news to find that some nut jobs had hijacked several planes and flown them into the World Trade Center Buildings and the Pentagon. It's funny how what should have been one of my worst trips ever is what I now call one of my best.