It started with an Ice Storm.
A lot of my anecdotes, ok all of them, have centered around someone having too much to drink. This one is completely different. This afternoon, I’m just going to share a bit of wisdom I picked up one time while traveling. It’s a little like one of Aesop’s Fables.
The story starts in Missouri. I was out there one winter, and the entire region got rocked by a vicious ice storm. Essentially confined to the house we only had power occasionally, and when it came on we had to quickly make something to eat, because no one knew when we were going back into the darkness. Eventually the weather caused me to miss an Eagles playoff game on television, and I had to reschedule my flight back to PA. I thought I gave myself enough leeway, but the day I left the weather was still a little dicey.
I arrived at the Branson/Springfield Municipal Recreational Air Field in plenty of time, and waited at my gate while I watched the minutes tick away. I had a connecting flight in Detroit later that night, the last flight going out to Philly. So we finally walk out onto the tarmac…I think the jetways were frozen, and get on board. The pilot comes on, and makes up a story how we are going to be making up time on the way to Detroit. Classic, but by the time the plane is de-iced, I’m thinking there’s decent chance I’m spending the night in D-town.
We touched down in Detroit about 14 minutes before my flight was supposed to leave for Philly, and by the time we taxied, and all that BS, it wasn’t looking good for me making the connection. As we casually rolled in, the flight attendant reminded everyone not to run to their gate. We were supposed to check the monitors first. Ok. I got off the plane and started hoofing it as fast I could toward my gate.
I fluxuate through various levels of lung capacity, and I don’t think this was one of my peaks so to speak, and I was pretty winded as arrived at my gate seeing the telltale closed door. The logistics of spending a night in Detroit were going through my head as the attendant at the gate talked on the phone, and gave me the “hold on a sec” finger in the air. Essentially what she was saying was, “Congratulations, you missed your plane.”
Just as the airline employee was hanging up, three ladies came running up to the gate, and took a spot in front of me at the counter. At least I wasn’t the only one who missed the plane. The ladies immediately went to work on the airline personel. They were motivated, forceful, and weren’t taking no for an answer. It was always my understanding that once this outer door was closed it was a done deal, but not on this night. They opened the door, and on the plane we went.
An unfortunate side effect of my jog to the gate was I was having a coughing fit by this time, and when I sat down the passenger next to me had a look on their face like they just got trapped in the SARS ward or something. I wanted to re-assure them that I wasn’t sick, just out of shape.
So what’s the lesson? Well when we were walking down the jetway, one of the ladies turned to me (we’d had no contact up to this point), and she said, “Always travel with a black woman.” And, there it is.
