The Road, Testily Traveled

It was the Year of Our Lord 1989, and I had made the dubious decision to leave my now famous hometown in the San Francisco Bay Area. 19-year-old me was convinced that relocating to a small town in Pennsylvania (with a name so ridiculous I daren’t reveal it) was a viable plan, mostly because, well, there was a guy involved. Given that it would be years before either the internet or cell phones would become a “thing”, we met by way of a mutual friend’s underground ‘zine. The fact that we broke up 2 years later and have had no contact whatsoever in nearly three decades only underscores the indispensability of fully developed planning and decision-making skills, which I’m proud to say I have now honed, at least somewhat.

In those days, it was more common for me to have two retail jobs than one (a lifestyle requiring an energy level that, post 50, I can rarely muster.) I was at one of them when I received a phone call from my dad in California, asking if I wanted to join him on a visit to see my Great Aunt Miriam. I specifically remember being asked, “How would you like to be a jet setter?” Upon hearing that, I knew instantly that he was aware on some level that he would most likely need to sell me on this idea, as our ability to peacefully coexist back then was, let’s say, limited. Also, he was being incongruous, as surely no one has ever “jet setted” to New Milford, Connecticut. Especially not when the destination is this particular skilled nursing facility (that I would bet the farm still smells of overcooked cabbage.)

After an uneventful flight from Harrisburg, I arrived at Chicago’s O’Hare airport and located the loftily named “lounge” by the luggage terminal after collecting my suitcase. I’m of the opinion that whomever designed the persimmon-hued, molded plastic seating in this area either never expected it to be sat on for any appreciable length of time and/or was conducting a particularly misanthropic social experiment. While doing my best to acclimate to this horrendous setting, I realized there were multiple signs on all the surrounding walls informing me that I could not leave my belongings unattended at ANY time. Not that I was planning to, but I have never especially enjoyed having my behavior dictated to me, so this got my hackles ever so slightly up.

Here is a list of all the items I had in my possession, which I had to drag with me every time I moved more than 3 feet in any direction:

• My suitcase;

• My bulky leather jacket;

• My purse, including my cigarettes, lighter, and my wallet (which held the $5 bill that comprised all the money I had in the world at the time);

• My unwieldy backpack, which was crammed full with:

o My Walkman, headphones, and an overly ambitious number of cassette tapes;

o My notebook, extra paper, and pen;

o The 500+ page library book I was reading

After retrieving my suitcase, I sat down and attempted to get as comfortable as the unforgiving chair would allow (spoiler alert: this was basically about 4 degrees north of excruciating.) My dad was flying in to meet me from San Francisco, and we were then supposed to fly to La Guardia together before driving the additional 90 minutes to Connecticut. I mentally prepared myself for what I had been told would be a wait of about 1.5/2 hours, which at the time sounded like a lot. It’s probably good I didn’t know what I was actually in for ahead of time, as I may well have spontaneously combusted.

I brought out my book and tried to start reading to help pass the time, but the chair was so confining that I quickly gave up. Not long after that I started hearing my name, but it didn’t immediately register how or where it was coming from. After a moment, I realized I was being prompted to pick up a White Courtesy Phone, and scrambled to grab all my things in order to search for one. After hauling and then tossing them on the ground in front of the first phone I saw, I picked it up expecting to hear my dad’s voice.

To my displeasure, it was his then girlfriend cheerily informing me that his flight had been delayed, and that he would now be arriving more than *eight hours* later than I had planned on. According to her, this wasn’t any big deal and I simply needed to “just sit tight and wait.” I’m pretty sure I’ve never wanted to throat punch another human more than I did in that moment; fortunately for both of us, this was neither geographically nor physically possible.

I decided to have a cigarette (incredibly, you could still smoke at the airport, so I didn’t even have to worry about going outside.) However, when I pulled out my pack of Marlboro 100’s, I saw that, to my horror, either my boyfriend (or one of our many roommates) had “borrowed” all but the last two smokes. There wasn’t much I could do about it, aside from having some rather dark thoughts, so I lit one of them and went to pull out my pen and notebook, thinking I’d write out some of my frustrations. An increasingly frantic search of both my backpack and then my purse revealed that the one and only pen I had hurriedly grabbed on my way out the door was out of ink, leaving me nothing to write with.

While this sank in, I felt my stomach rumble and suddenly remembered I hadn’t packed water or any kind of food, thinking that the airline would serve at least snacks if not a meal. I dug through my wallet, hoping that I would find a couple of quarters that I could use at the vending machine, but I was out of luck- I had given all my change to my boyfriend’s nephew the week before to add to his coin collection.

Not wanting to get completely aggravated, I pulled out my Walkman and headphones so I could listen to music and come up with a course of action. While this seemed like a good plan initially, I got about three songs into my favorite Cure album (“The Head on the Door”, if you’re curious) before the songs started sounding tinny and slowed down. Not wanting to face the reality that my batteries were preparing to depart their Mortal Coil, I clawed through every pocket in my backpack, jacket, and purse for fresh batteries, to no avail.

At this point, I was so annoyed I wasn’t sure what to do with myself, but knew I needed some kind of a change of scenery. What I now know of as my hypoglycemia had started to kick in, which makes decision making of any degree extra frustrating and hard. I realized that I would never be able to afford batteries, a pen, cigarettes, AND some kind of food with only a $5 bill and no credit or bank cards, so I went with Plan B. I gathered up all my things, found the least appealing (and therefore cheapest, or at least I hoped) bar that my newly minted 21-year-old self could spot an empty barstool at, and ordered a beer. If I remember correctly, it cost just about all of my $5, so I was not the day’s most generous tipper, methinks. I grabbed handfuls of nuts when the bartender wasn’t looking, although in retrospect, I doubt he would have cared if I’d eaten the whole bowl. I wasn’t prepared for any (more) potentially unpleasant surprises by now, though, so went into self-preservation mode.

Here’s where things finally took a turn for the better: when I went to put my jacket on, I heard something fall to the ground and bent over to retrieve it. I realized someone had dropped a pen and tried to give it back to the bartender, but he waved me off and suggested I keep it, stating that he “didn’t need it and Bic would make more.” I thanked him profusely and departed quickly so as not to have to explain myself or acknowledge his look of puzzlement (if this happened today, I’d surely be tagged as “THAT customer” on his social media accounts!)

Next, I returned to the lounge but this time, there was a lovely family who seemed to sense that I was having kind of a time of it, and they took it upon themselves to “adopt” me. The family was comprised of a woman who was probably in her 60’s, a man I assumed was her husband, and an older woman (one of their mothers, I guessed?) They were talking and laughing with each other in Spanish, and they smiled at me and motioned for me to come over and sit with them. I did, and for a while, we tried to communicate a little but there was quite a language barrier (almost entirely on my part) so eventually they started singing together. The younger of the two women nicknamed me “Misses” and brought over a stuffed teddy bear that she had bought for a grandchild (or maybe she’s into stuffies, no judgements here!) Apparently, I looked pretty frazzled, so they assumed (correctly, it turned out) that what I needed was both teddy bear cuddles and a single size package of Oreos. When they left, I handed over the teddy bear and thanked them, and they all hugged me goodbye. I sat for an extraordinarily long time, wrote in my notebook, and marveled at quickly my bum was falling asleep, despite my near constant fidgeting.

When my dad finally arrived, I stayed awake long enough to get to the car rental place but was out before he left the airport (oh, to be able to sleep like that now!) I was incredulous when he woke me up at 6:00am at our motel, given that we had arrived about four hours earlier, but we ended up having a good time and it meant a lot to my Great Aunt to have us there with her.

So, what are my insights from what I had long thought of as the travel experience from hell?

• Packing the day before (rather than the day of) is a very, very good thing;

• Put snacks in your carryon (I once went to an out of state conference for work, and my coworker who sat next to me teased me repeatedly for bringing peanuts with me. Joke was on him, though- the airline ran out of them but I had enough to share with our row!);

• Always have at least two pens (and check them before leaving the house!);

• My smartphone holds more music than I could listen to in a year, but I’d go back to my Walkman days in a heartbeat (just so long as it was a 24 hour visit and not a permanent regression!);

• Never be so focused on what doesn’t work that what does work gets passed over…..