On the Road

At about 5:30 AM I rolled my large, green suit­case from 6^th Avenue and Granville to the top of the hill, at Broad­way. I huffed and puffed a lit­tle, but it wasn’t too bad. The ‘Quick­Shut­tle’ from Van­cou­ver to Seat­tle Air­port arrived a few min­utes late at 6:10, but the small group of us (mostly stu­dents and a few tourists) got on quickly. After stops at 41^st Street, YVR, and a Con­ve­nience Store and Gift Shop near the bor­der, we arrived at the Canadian/US bor­der at around 7:45. It took us about 45 min­utes to get processed, our bags X-rayed and the usual ques­tions and cus­toms forms. We made it down to Seat­tle (down­town first near the Space Nee­dle, air­port sec­ond) in plenty of time for me to check my lug­gage, get on the snaking secu­rity line, and grab a bite of lunch.

The first cul­tural shocks came: That hor­ri­ble woman’s voice on the pub­lic address sys­tem that’s now appar­ently in air­ports coast to coast: Thenk you for mak­ing shore yore beg­gidge is not left unat­tinded. Unat­tinded beg­gidge will be removed by air­port stayaff. Then, I started notic­ing all of the fat peo­ple. A large group wait­ing for the plane pulling in before mine were a great deal of over­weight folks bound for Hat­ties­burg, Mis­sis­sippi, all with iden­ti­cal brown T-shirts that read ‘Builders for Christ’ (I found out later that these were masons, elec­tri­cians, plumbers, etc. who build churches and other reli­gious build­ings for free).

After we boarded, I learned that I had the seats right by the front entrance. This is a bless­ing and a curse. The bless­ing is that it’s the first seat on (for gen­eral board­ing, not First Class, of course) and one of the first off. The curse is that every per­son com­ing in the plane goes by it, so for­get about sit­ting in it dur­ing the board­ing of the plane. I stood with the flight atten­dants as they said hello to the pas­sen­gers. That front row was also where sev­eral sol­diers (Marines and Navy, to be pre­cise) sat as they were head­ing home from being sta­tioned in Japan (after a tour or two of Iraq).

The flight got into Saint Louis, my con­nec­tion, a lit­tle late. For­tu­nately, my con­nect­ing flight was in the next gate. I walked off the plane, and lit­er­ally walked over 20 feet to the gate of the other flight as that was the moment they called for board­ing of all seats. Just before I walked out onto the tar­mac (it was a small plane), I said to the the woman at the gate: “I’m a lit­tle con­cerned, since my con­nect­ing flight is so late that my bag won’t make it”. “Your bag will make it”, she said confidently.

The flight to Bal­ti­more from Saint Louis was short, which was for­tu­nate, because it was in a very small jet, with a ceil­ing so low that I couldn’t fully stand up. When I arrived in Bal­ti­more, my par­ents were there wait­ing for me. After we went to bag­gage claim, we soon learned that what I had feared was true. My bag had indeed missed the con­nec­tion. The woman in Saint Louis had looked me in the face and lied (or just said some­thing that was ridicu­lous to patron­ize a pas­sen­ger). I really would have appre­ci­ated some can­dor, but that’s not the way they do busi­ness at Amer­i­can Airlines.

The bag just arrived. 12:24 AM, tech­ni­cally, 2 days later.

I don’t want to be a worry-wart, but what really con­cerns me now is that my con­nec­tion back to Seat­tle is even tighter, and if my bag doesn’t make it there, I would have to take the bus back to Van­cou­ver with­out it. Or per­haps, stay with my brother in Belle­vue and resched­ule the trip back until I can get the bag. Such is air travel in the good old US of A.