Spacer Homily
The Ticket Dream
This was an ironic, humorous dream for me.
I was in a huge airport terminal. It was day. I’d been traveling all over, mostly alone, as was my case during my careers. Now I was going home. But where was home? How was I getting there? I didn’t know either of these answers.
As others left, I searched through my baggage to figure out where I was supposed to be going. While I was doing this, a female airline employee walked up and talked to different people. I prepared to approach her to ask for help. But as I did, she turned and pointed to me. “You’re going on the eleven nineteen,” she said.
I was impressed that she knew that, and thankful. After she said it, I discovered a ticket in my baggage. The ticket was one of those antiquated styles, with a card back and several tissue-thin layers separated with carbon paper. Pleased and relieved, I had my ticket. I just had to wait for my flight.
It was apparently going to be a long wait. Flights were called; people departed, and I remained. I kept losing my ticket in my paperwork. Back in paper days, I would create a folder for my travel. It would have my boarding passes, tickets, baggage claims, agendas, orders (when I was military), et cetera. As others left, I became anxious. To relieve my anxiety, I’d check my ticket. Each time I pulled out my folder to consult my ticket, the ticket was gone. Then I’d go through a mad hunt, emptying my bags and searching for my ticket. Each time, though, I wouldn’t find it, until – surprise! – I found it in my paperwork.
I moved closer to the customer service desk where the woman worked. At one point, she saw me, pointed, and said, “You’re going on the eleven nineteen. Your flight is soon.”
My wife arrived, surprising me. “How did you get here?” I said.
She was smiling. “My boyfriend drove me.” Her expression told me she was joking.
Tired, I wasn’t in a joking mood. “Well, did you boyfriend give you a way to get home? I’m on the eleven nineteen. My flight is soon.”
She held up a ticket. “I know. I’m on it.”
“How’d you do that? The flight was full.”
She didn’t say. At this point, I slipped into enough consciousness that I knew this was a dream. It reminded me a lot of some of my travels, but the part that struck me as ironic and humorous was that my ticket kept getting lost in my paperwork. I thought, that’s pretty funny for a writer.
The Overlooked Opportunity
There are types and tricks to sleeping in an airport. My wife and I know this, having spent many nights stuck in an airport.
Airlines usually do offer hotel vouchers when your flight is cancelled. But the song and dance is a familiar show: it’s midnight to two or three in the morning. They tell you that they have you on the first flight out, which will be six or seven in the morning. By the time you leave for the hotel, get checked in, and arrive in your room, your chance for sleeping is limited to a few hours before you need to get up and come back to the airport, because you need to process through security and get to the gate an hour before the boarding time.
So, when sleeping in an airport, don’t just settle for a chair. Walk around and look around. Many airports have conversation lounges or pits. You want to be able to stretch out.
Which leads me to the overlooked opportunity. Airports should be building sleeping lounges. These need not be fancy, just spaces where you can rent a daybed or cot and sack out for a few hours. You’ll rent it, of course. It’s not practical for airports to give things away for free. They get nothing for free. Taxpayers, businesses, airlines, and customers must tote the bill for everything in an airport. Why should you get anything for free?
Yes, there would be some administrative, bureaucratic, security, and cleaning maintenance overhead. Yes, no doubt, but we’d be willing to accept quite a bit, we exhausted, worn out, stranded travelers. Look what we’re already enduring, how we curl up in corners on the floor, or hunker like twisted metal hangers in chairs. Don’t you think we’d pony up a little money to stretch our backs, close our eyes and sigh into sleep?
By having these temporary beds available, airlines could look like heroes. They’d be off the hook for offering hotel vouchers. Instead, they could give you a bed voucher, so you should shuffle off for a sweet nappy nap before trudging back over and resuming your place in the queues.
You know the opportunity is here. We need them now. Walk through airports at night and count the sleeping denizens. Don’t tell me the need doesn’t exist. That need will only get worse in the coming years. The prices for tickets will climb. The airlines aren’t going to suddenly awaken to their ways and stop overbooking. No, they’re addicted to that profit model, and profit must be had. And aircraft break. We need a space to shovel these people so they stretch out when they’re left without the chance to leave.
Come on, some airport out there must step up and make it happen. The people are counting on you.
Another Fine United Airlines Experience
Okay, yes, I know we swore we would never fly United again.
It’s rare that something goes correctly when traveling with United during the past several years. It’s usually a shuffle of planes, gates, and information that prompts us to wistfully comment, “Remember when flying used to be fun?”
But the prices and flight option mirages seduce us as it always does. United claims to have wonderful flights and prices. Their prices are several hundred dollars below the other airlines. So, wincing, we think…should we trust them?
It’s like being in a bad relationship. The other swears to change. You want to believe. You take them back, and they go out and do the same damn heart-breaking things as before.
You learn, again, you can’t trust them.
On this episode of United Horror, my wife was traveling alone. The travel east, from Medford, Oregon, to Charleston, WV, went almost perfectly. Everyone was so nice, she said. This was, of course, because United had encountered another P.R. moment when a woman was forced to hold her baby for the entire flight after she’d bought a ticket for the child.
Service and pleasantness declined a little in Chicago. “Maybe they didn’t get the memo,” she said, but it was nothing major.
Now we’re set up for the return. Her first leg on her way home, to Chicago, went fine. It fell to pieces in Chicago. In line to board, the passengers were told there was a delay. Mechanical problem. The delay was for several hours; it meant my wife would miss her next leg.
She headed to customer service. Nothing can be done, she was told.
What about flights on other airlines?
Nothing.
What about going to Portland instead, and then catching a flight to Medford?
They would get her to Portland, but she was on her own after that, and good luck.
Well, that would leave her almost three hundred miles from her destination.
Yep, true. Good luck with that.
Well, mechanic issues happen. Food vouchers were given. She bought a vegetarian sandwich in the airport. How was the sandwich? “Well, there were vegetables.”
She was scheduled to arrive in Medford by quarter to one in the morning. Instead, she arrived in San Francisco at two in the morning. “You’re booked on the same flight as before, but delayed twenty-four hours,” the customer service supervisor told her. Instead of arriving at Medford at a quarter to one Friday morning, she’d be arriving at quarter to one on Saturday morning. “We also have put you on stand-by for an earlier flight, but the flights are full. We’re going to put you up for two nights in a hotel. Wait right here, and we’ll take care of you.”
Then they left.
Almost an hour later, my wife wandered through the SFO terminal in search of United help. Customer service was full of sleeping passengers, but no workers. Have you ever been in these terminals at three in the morning? Cleaning crews circulate while stranded passengers sprawl out or desperately occupy themselves.
Finding a customer service hotline, she called for assistance. “Just go to customer service,” she was told.
“That’s where I was. There’s no one there except sleeping passengers.”
“Well then, I don’t know what you can do,” the helpful agent replied.
Bravely continuing on her quest, my wife circulated around the United gates and customer service areas until she spied United employee. Flagging her down, she explained what had happened. To her credit, this woman took care of her.
My wife arrived at her Comfort Suites room at four in the morning.
While my wife was enduring her flying fun, another woman was furious with United for keeping her baby in an overheated aircraft for two hours.
I offered to drive down to San Francisco and pick my wife up. It’s only a four and a half hour drive, in theory. Weekend traffic and construction would probably extend that travel time. She declined. She’ll be patient and wait, not because she trusts United, but because it’s all set in motion.
An eclipse is happening on August twenty-first. Oregon is considered prime viewing territory, so we’re bracing ourselves. Hotel prices have climbed. People are renting out houses, rooms, and their yards, with bathroom privileges. These sort of total eclipses don’t happen that often. People want to be part of the scene.
Hertz has already confirmed that they’ve overbooked, and have a problem, and have begun canceling reservations. United, of course, will overbook. That’s their motto: “We overbook.” There’s a damn good chance in my mind that if you’re flying via United, you’ll end up arriving a few hours after the eclipse.
Oh, the stories people will tell.
Whetting Desire
There was no warning of what was about to happen.
The other and I jumped into the car. Directing it onto the Interstate, we sped to another town for two days and a night of dining elsewhere, shopping, reading and relaxing. Our mini-vacation choice puzzled friends, but that’s life. Being out there, though, staying in a hotel, reading and eating at restaurants without any damn cares whet my desire for more of that life.
My wife felt it, too. “Wouldn’t it be great to just keep driving and go to another town, stay another night?”
Yep, it sure would.
Meanwhile —
I was writing yesterday, working on the novel in progress. It was a fabulous writing day. I jumped right into that writing and editing phase after some deep thinking and writing in my head that took place while driving and shopping the day before. Terribly rewarding, it whet my appetite to spend my hours doing nothing but writing and drinking coffee.
Suddenly —
I read about Bertha, the TBM. Some quick pedantic explanation: a TBM is a tunnel boring machine. Bertha was the one used in Seattle in the tunnel construction to replace the Alaska Way Viaduct. The A.W.V. had been damaged in the six point eight magnitude earthquake in two thousand one. Bertha had just completed its part, breaking out of the earth and into its disassembly area.
The article whet my appetite for big endeavors like digging a tunnel. I wished I’d pursued an engineering degree. Then I might have been part of amazing projects like this.
I must admit, too, the child residing just under my skin said, “Bertha. Bertha Butt. One of the Butt Sisters.” Recognize it? It’s just how my infantile mind makes connections.
But then, without warning —
I watched the first episode of American Gods again. Suddenly, I wanted to watch the next one, right now. Then I watched the Handmaid’s Tale. It whet my appetite for more, as did Red Rock when I watched its episodes.
It just seems to be one of those periods. I’m restless, excited and energetic. Life and its demands feels like a straitjacket. Time plods along, and impatience snaps a whip. Everything whets my appetite for more, now.
But, alas —
I know this period will shift. Maybe I just slept more, so I feel more rested and have more energy. My Fitbit claims I slept seven and a half hours, an hour more than my usual. Perhaps this energy and mood is the product of my dreams when I slept. They all seemed empowering…from what I remember….
Regardless —
Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
I know exactly where to begin today.
Experience
He was seventy-five, and she, the younger, was just seventy-three. They met on a cruise to Alaska, an adventure to eat food and see things like glaciers. They knew they didn’t agree on politics but there was e l e c t r i c i t y between them, not sparks or embers, but record one hundred mile long billion volt lightning strokes. So they said, what the hell, let’s try this and see.
Adventurous people they were, they went ‘camping’ together, renting a small cabin to share (there were separate beds), fishing and hiking in the day, campfires and singing at night.
Ten days in, they knew it would not work. He was an ardent Trump supporter and she was advocating RESIST. She gave him three choices: “Take me to an airport and I’ll fly home. Drive me home. Drive me to somewhere where I can rent a car and I’ll drive myself home.”
He replied, “Number three sounds good.”
So that’s what they did, swearing never to see one another again, and unfriending one another on Facebook.
It was a thirty-day life experience.
Spiteful Stuff
Okay, everyone harmonize. This will be a self-pitying blues ballad. Sing along if you want.
Some days I feel like the universe hates me. It’s not really mean, just spiteful. Exhibit number one.
The week before leaving to take care of family business on the East Coast, we were shopping. The wind wrenched the door out of my hand, slamming it into the car beside me.
There weren’t witnesses. I could have driven away.
I could see a small ding on the crease line. The Hyundai Elantra wasn’t a new car but a recent year. From the tags, someone had recently purchased it.
My deductible is a grand. I knew this would be less than a grand. I wrote a note, apologizing and providing my contact information. As it happened, I came out as the other drive was leaving. She hadn’t noticed the ding or my note, so she drove off, saw the note, parked and got out to look. I hurried up to her and talked about it.
Now, back home, I’ve received the bill: seven hundred forty dollars for a parking lot ding. Ouch.
Exhibit number two.
I had four flights scheduled for my trip, covering the travel there and back. There were all with United Airlines. I took two of those four; the rest were canceled or missed because the flight before it was late. I ended up on six flights, total. I was re-booked on four flights that were cancelled. None of the flights took off on schedule. None arrived to their destination on schedule. One hundred percent failure in both of those areas.
I spent one night in the SFO airport going, and a day there coming back. I was supposed to be in that airport for about two hours, instead of eighteen.
One flight that I took was a re-booked flight to cover one of the cancellations. Going through Chicago, they couldn’t provide me a seat number for the next flight. “See them at the gate when you get there.”
We did that. The first agent told us we didn’t need another boarding pass or seats. We would use the same ones, and the same seats.
He was wrong.
The next agent got us seats but we weren’t together. We couldn’t get seats together. That was another recurring theme in this flying fiasco. Originally booked side-by-side, it took a lot of cajoling, talking and visits to agents at the gates to make it happen, and it failed sixty percent of the time.
So, the universe and I aren’t getting along well right now. I don’t think it’s me, personally, that’s making the universe spiteful. I think it’s weary of the world’s bullshit as much as I am. It’s tired of trying to be reasonable in the face of insanity. I understand, in a way, but I don’t like it.
To the universe, please let me know what I need to make it up to you. I’d really like to return to being on better terms with you.
Air Future
Just imagine.
“This leg of your journey is sponsored by Progressive,” a soft voice states in your head as you stride along the beach. Progressive agents clad in their white and blue uniforms approach you with a smile and a tray of drinks.
“This is the life,” you say, accepting a glass of wine as a sea breeze and sunshine caresses your face.
You’d never believe you were flying thirty thousand plus feet above the earth, would you?
That’s the point.
Marketwatch posted a piece about air travel and passengers’ dissatisfaction with one another. As a result, most folks don’t like air travel. Instead of being a pleasurable method to go from one place to another, it’s become a gritty, exhausting experience.
So says me. My issues aren’t with the other passengers but the airlines. They cut services and space, increase ticket prices, improve their profit margins while customers like me and my wife suffer more and more. See, the older you become, the harder it is to wedge yourself into a tiny space.
Marketwatch did note that the airlines might be blamed for the rise of the irritating passengers.
“Why do planes seem to bring out the worst in people? “Planes are more crowded, seats are smaller, connecting times are shorter and amenities are growing more rare,” frequent traveler Nic Lesmeister told The Wall Street Journal in October, all of which stress passengers out and, experts say, may contribute to the bad behavior.
“He’s onto something. As MarketWatch reported in July: Airlines and plane manufacturers are reconfiguring planes to fit more people on them, shrinking (and in some cases eliminating) bathrooms, creating seats that don’t recline, and reducing the amount of legroom and the amount of padding in seats.”
Yeah, you think? IMO – you knew I’d have one – airlines need to do some quick fixes. Like what? Virtual reality, of course! Issue googles or glasses and plug us in as we enter. Create a different reality, something we’d like, to trick us into believing we were enjoying ourselves, rather than enduring a flying hell.
Yes, I know, costs, costs, costs! But with irritating passengers and air travel by volume on the rise, something needs done. Just think of the advertising potential. Flights, or segments of flights, and, or, aircraft could be sponsored by companies who would pay for the rights, like they do with sports stadiums. Companies could also bid for the naming rights for just the terminals, to help offset costs, and increase profits. Just imagine hearing them announce your six AM boarding call by saying, “Now boarding United Flight six seven three in the Home Depot terminal at the Red Lobster Gate. Flight six seven three is brought to you by Kellogg’s. Kellogg’s – the best to you each morning!”
Before and after your virtual interlude after seating yourself on the flight, your virtual reality sponsor can make an announcement. “This flight is made soothing by Verizon. Verizon, giving you the best world on the horizon.”
Come on, airlines, throw us a bone. Use some imagination and technology. Make it easier to for us to cope with one another and endure you.
Today’s Theme Music
We listened to a lot of music while I was stationed on Okinawa in the early 1980s. Drank a lot of beer, too. Smoked a lot of cigars, played a lot of Risk and worked a lot. We also went to college.
Anyway, back to the music thing. The Internet wasn’t around. CD players and Compact Discs were just emerging. For reference, the hot new computer was the TRS 80.
So we played a lot of vinyl, recording it onto more portable, user friendly formats. One album that came out then was Foreigner 4, by Foreigner. Several hits were on that album, including this song, ‘Juke Box Hero’. Later generations and listeners might be familiar with the song through its commercial use.
Stream it in your head as you’re walking around dreaming of heroes and villians.
Food Trip
Winter has worn me down. I feel it in my palate. Snow has dissipated, the ice has faded and the temperatures are rising. (We’ve seen over fifty degrees Fahrenheit two days in a row!)
A little town fever is settling in. Town fever is just like cabin fever. It’s a sensation that you just got to do something different. The walls are slowly collapsing. The ceiling is sinking and beginning to crush me. And yes, I know the town has no physical ceiling, but it’s this sense grabs you that, “OMG help me I’m gonna go nuts where can we go to get the hell away from our routines and tedium now now NOW?”
I began simply, thinking, Grants Pass is just forty-five minutes away by speedy auto. We can go there, do a little strolling about, eat somewhere – wasn’t there a new place recently opened?
But I’ve been to Grants Pass not long ago. It’s a nice city but not the balm for this itch. My move floated toward Eugene!
Eugene, just about three hours away and three hours back, is doable. We’ve done it a few times every year, just a little escape to shop, walk around, and…you know…eat somewhere different than our usual Ashland haunts. Mind you, Ashland has good food, and we can escape to Talent, Phoenix, Medford and even Jacksonville to find some relief.
But this is a mad, mad itch. Corvallis would be even better than Eugene. Or Bend!
Oh, Bend. Now we’re talking. Bend is a more difficult day trip. Though the snow has diminished here in the valley, getting to Bend will probably require us to traverse some snow and ice. But there are so many great places in Bend, places like Next Level Burger.
Hmmm…burger. Cheeseburger, with a beer and fries. Deschutes Brewery is located in Bend.
Oh, yes.
That would scratch my winter itch.
Michael Seidel, writer 