Dante, in his bestselling "Inferno" (No. 1 for 700 years), speaks of the seven levels of Hell, with level one being pre-school, levels two through six being DMV lines of different lengths and level seven being airports. Dante and I clash on many topics (the proper way to pronounce "asparagus," for instance), but I totally agree with his opinion of airports.
I had to use an airport recently because I visited the Cayman Islands with my family during Spring Break, and, as camel-travel to the Caribbean is both expensive and exhausting, I had to fly. The trip itself was relaxing, although I missed out on the normal Spring Break activities of partying and getting tattoos you will eventually hate, especially since you don't even know who "Mary" is or why you love her. I had a quiet vacation because I was with my parents, whose idea of craziness is limited to "Laverne and Shirley" marathons.
Unfortunately, the airport experience did not disappoint, as the necessary plane trips tainted an otherwise great vacation.? The airport was full of delays, large men and soulful voices telling me I should throw away my trash. Honestly. The airport's intercom system, in between telling me I should report anything suspicious such as nuclear warheads or small children, played what I thought to be a blues song but was actually a deep voice singing, "If you have trash, please throw it away. Ba-Ba-Ba. If you have trash ..." Do airport managers do this because they think otherwise we wouldn't listen? And what next? Instead of somebody saying, "Flight 291 to the Galapagos is ready to board," Bjork will just scream obscenities?
Anyway, the biggest frustration occurred on the way home, for the flight between Atlanta and Lynchburg. First of all, they delayed the departure time by two hours and changed the gate to a terminal across the airport. I expected this, though. It's standard airport procedure, in fact, to incorrectly announce the flight time, departure gate and often the destination, too.
Then, once we were on the plane, I had to sit next to a very large man who reminded me of that whale who swallowed Pinocchio. Now, I know it's cliché to say I always sit next to a large man when flying, but I really always do sit next to a large man when flying. It's inexplicable. And, as a small person, I don't have much body weight to fight back, so I end up just using his arm, depending on its size, as either a head or body pillow.
The flight, for some reason, was delayed even more once we were on the runway. The pilot eventually told us the reason: "Um, OK, sorry for the delay, folks. Our left hydraulic synergetic fuel tank has broken, and the repair crew will be here shortly."
Now, of course the pilot was lying. There is no such thing as a hydraulic synergetic fuel tank. There has never been one on a plane, not even in the beginning, when the Wright brothers incorporated all types of strange gadgets in their first models, which were very successful, if your definition of success includes crashing and catching whole towns on fire. Such innovative gadgets included:
1.Planks of wood
2.More wood
The truth of the matter is he was probably covering for his buddy John, but if he told us, "Um, OK, sorry for the delay, folks. John, our co-pilot, got drunk last night and somehow misplaced his keys, wallet and youngest child," the passengers might angrily throw their salted peanuts at him. Yet if he creates an excuse involving engine failure or missing left wings, nobody would get angry. They may even applaud him for his shrewd decision to reattach the wings before taking off.
The final disappointment occurred after we landed, when we discovered that the airline managed to lose three-fourths of the passengers' luggage, including mine. This all really happened. There were 40 people on the plane, and 30 did not receive their baggage. The other 10, whose luggage arrived, were stared at with such disgust that one would presume they had just driven a yacht into an orphanage. I don't understand how the baggage loaders didn't notice that about 40 pieces of luggage were missing. I assume they had beforehand swallowed a massive amount of heavy sedatives, but I, not knowing the difference between highly illegal substances and tic-tacs, can't be 100 percent certain what they took.
They delivered my bag about three days later, although they did forget to deliver its contents. I think next time, no matter the price, I'm using camels. You ride alone, and they rarely have trouble with their hydraulic fuel tanks.
Chris' column runs weekly Mondays. He can be reached at shuptrine@cavalierdaily.com.
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