Back (barely)

So my flight back from Atlanta departs at 7:07p. A group of about seven of us hop aboard the MARTA (and, to be sure, go whizzing past some truly horrific traffic — word was that, at rush hour, it was about a two hour trip from the office down to the airport, give or take) so as to be there about 5:10. We all teased at the one manager whose flight was 6:45 about how close a connection it was going to be for him. And I recalled, humously, how, during the True Colors game Thanksgiving evening, I’d been the one voted most likely to be late for a plane.

Ha, ha, ha.

Get off the MARTA, wander in. While my opportunities to get a good feel for it have been limited, it strikes me that the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is, at least in the terminal, a mare’s nest. I can see now that it isn’t, but signage didn’t strike me as all that great, and getting from Point A to Point B was a labyrinthine mess.

But I may be prejudiced by how I had to do it.

We walked past a Departures display. I stopped to glance at my flight. Hard to read, since Delta is partnered with any number of other airlines, and my particular flight had three other names/numbers associated with it (note to airlines and the FAA — this is extremely confusing to most passengers and not capable of being well displayed on most airport monitors; fix how you ID the flight).

At any rate, I eventually spotted it, confirmed it was there, what the gate number was, and that it was CANCELLED.

CANCELLED?!

Aw, crap.

Start to run to find customer service. Pulled back, went and saw what other Denver flights were displayed. Hey, they have one going out at 5:54p.

Only 45 minutes from now. Eep!

Dash around through seemingly endless area, following the signs to ticketing, and then the itty-bitty sign for Delta ticketing.

Aha — there’s a desk for Delta Direct Assistance. Is that customer assistance? I hope so. I also hope that the two people up at the front of the line, at the same counter, talking with the same lady, can deal with the dozen people ahead of me in line before …

… well, before now, because there is no time.

Aha. Delta Direct Assistance phone right next to the line. I pick one up. A nice lady answers. I give my name, where I am (since it wasn’t clear if she knew I was in Atlanta or not) and, as I fumble in my brief case for my itinerary to get the flight number, try to tell her my situation, the time of the flight I was on, that I’d noticed that there was another flight …

“Oh, Mr. Hill, yes, it looks like they’ve already booked you on that flight at 5:54.”

“They have?”

“Yes, your boarding pass is available at the Delta Direct Assistance counter.”

“Greatthankyoubuhbye!”

The DDA folks were still helping some lady who had a large box that needed taping.

I decided that, given the time pressure, I would go to the front of the line and ask the gent there if I could approach the counter first. Those of you who know me realize how completely panicky a state this implies I was in, since bucking line protocol like that is tantamount to war crimes in my Personal Book of Stuff I Just Don’t Do.

I did so. The guy at the front was cool. The guy behind him, who was flying to LA on a flight due to leave two minutes before mine, pulled rank, and it was hard to argue with him on the merits. We both went up there.

Turns out the second fellow at the counter was actually slowly going through boarding passes as they printed out. One. At. A. Time. Very. Slowly. …

LA Guy’s pass was just out. Mine? Not so much.

I pulled back. Fidgeted. Watched as Boarding Pass Dude stopped is process to saunter down the counter, find some more tape, and come back to tape Box Lady’s box some more.

Fortunately, before the ticking of my wristwatch drove me mad, MAD, I TELL YOU, another lady came to the counter and read off my name. Zim, zoom, here’s my ID, thank you, and there’s a Dave-shaped hole in the air where I’d been.

(Side note: Delta, why in heaven’s name would you have a huge farm of electronic check-in kiosks and then have them only open between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m.? I mean — don’t most of your fliers need them both before and after that? Or is your kiosk system so fragile it can’t take that much traffic? Just asking.)

Off dashes Dave, OJ Simpson-like (back in the race-through-the-airport Avis days, not in the drive-down-the-freeway LA days), wheeled suitcase bumping behind me, following the signs (both official and needful-if-tiny hand-done) to the Security line. Dude waves us in down the long aisles of switch-backed lines … up to another fellow, at the end of the line, who is, in slow motion, carefully checking boarding passes with IDs.

Get waved through there — it’s 5:25, eek! — and into the line for the machines. Okay, gotta make sure I take off everything that could beep — can’t afford to get into the manual inspection line. Careful, careful, two bins, two bags, shoes, cell phone and clip, got it, ready to go through …

Nope, waved to a halt. Security Man is checking individuals’ boarding passes (again!) and doesn’t want me to pass through until … now.

Okay, no prob, back to the other end of the line, no sign of my bags, where are they, still in there, oh, hell, this will be the time that they decide to take apart my brief case and its myriad cables and the like, son of a —

And here it all slowly comes down the conveyor belt, slide it all down, quick, throw on shoes, transfer notebook back to brief case, along with phone and pedometer and Palm, and, zoom!

Weave my way at a trot through the crowds sauntering away from security. Worry, vaguely, that the security people may look askance at some guy running (though, on reflection, I’m sure I wouldn’t be the first one), down the escalator, weaving through people just standing there, figure out which train I need to be on to get to the concourse, start to get on —

Something is wrong.

Quick, think, what could be wrong, what could be missing —

I left my frelling suitcase at the security checkpoint. (N.B. I did not actually use the word “frelling” in my interior monologue, but some other choice words, but, hey, my mom reads this.)

I dash back over to the escalators …

Three of them. All going down, toward me.

Spot a sign — escalators/elevators. Bypass the elevator — too slow. Dash up the blessedly upward-going escalator and …

That’s the escalator for folks who’ve gotten off the trains and are going into the concourse. It goes up to the concourse, not to the security level. Down the long, long, featureless hall, I can see the security guard whose job it is to keep folks from coming down this way.

Oh. Hell. (N.B. I did actually use that word, though it was not alone.)

If I continue down this long, long corridor, I will have to go up a level and pass through security again in order to get to my suitcase.

Ah, there’s the elevator. Push the button.

Nothing. No. Thing. The elevator evidently cannot be summoned up to this level.

There must be another way up from the train platform. I look. Nobody coming up the escalator. I go down the up escalator (something every kid wants to do, but not exactly the circumstances I would have chosen to do it in).

Manage to get down without (a) injuring myself, (b) causing any loud alarms to go off and send swarms of security folks to bust me. (“Aha! So you’re the Evil Dave Hill after all!”)

Find a janitor. Explain, brokenly and breathlessly (hey, I just ran down the up escalator) that I need to get back up to the security checkpoint. Surely he knows a way. Surely …

“Just take that elevator over there up to ticketing.”

Rrg. Run to the elevator. Press the button. Several hours later, it opens, and I see that there are buttons to Mezzanine level (where the escalator had taken me, I assume) and Ticketing. Press that.

And, miracle of miracles, I’m there. I trot through the security area, against the current (and wait for someone to tackle me and drag me into the interrogation room). Where was my security line? There were several, they all look in use, and …

At this point, I am sure my bag is gone — deemed abandoned, and hauled out onto the tarmac to be remotely detonated.

And then I spot it. They’ve pulled it down to the end of the conveyor belt table, and it’s just sitting there. There are a couple of guards at the end of that line, chatting, but neither of them bat an eye when I dash up, grab the suitcase, and take it.

From then on, things get a scosh easier. The down escalator this time is chock-full of people, but a train is just arriving as I get down to the platform. Off to Concourse B, which is, mercifully, the second stop (of five or six).

Dash up the escalators on the other end — poorly signed, again, and I have a brief panicky moment, mid-flight, that this is taking me up to the walkway between concourses and that there’s no down escalator again and …

And I’m in the concourse. Hot damn!

Twenty whole minutes to flight time. No time to eat (even if I had cash, mutter mutter, something else I’d planned on doing in my copious free time at the airport, ha ha) or shop for something for Margie and Katherine. Though — midway along the concourse (where Gate 4 is, of course, down at the far end), I spot a kiosk selling Lego kits, and spot a Dora one, and have to buy it for Kitten).

Then off at a trot down to the gate, get there, note the FINAL BOARDING flashing on the sign, onto the Jetway, and …

Well, not home free yet. Given (A) consolidation of two Denver flights into one, (B) that remaining Denver flight being scheduled, not on the relatively comfy 767 I had out, but my least favorite jet, the ever-popular-with-Delta MD-88, and (C) my arriving at the last minute, and you end up with …

(D) A very, very crowded plane, with all of the overhead bins full already.

And I was ticketed to 36B, way in the back. Way, way, way in the back, past the bizarre mid-cabin kitchen that the MD-88s have. I spotted an almost-empty spot in an overhead bin, and got my suitcase in. Ahhhh. No worries now. I can put the briefcase up in front of me, relax, and enjoy my flight …

Somebody is sitting in my seat.

It’s a center seat (of course). “Excuse me, I’m 36B.” Dude looks up at me, calmly gets up, pulls out his boarding pass, shows it to me as I’m showing him mine. He has 36B, too. Swell.

Call the stewardess. Wait, as the aisle is still full of people. We stand in the kitchen to avoid the crush. We show her our tickets. She opines that she needs to go to the front of the plane to resolve it, and does so. We stand there. Other 36B Dude goes to the head. I realize that 36B is a bulkhead seat, which means … no place to put my briefcase. Quick grab a couple of books out of it, put them in the Lego kit bag …

The stewardess comes back, tells me that I should be in 36B. Okay. “I don’t have a place to stash this briefcase.” She finds a spot, slips it up there. I sit down, hot and sweaty and uncomfortable (the plane being too warm). 36A and 36C are having an animated chat, and I really don’t feel like joining in and I really don’t want to read my book in the middle of them, and the air jet at least is working and …

And Other 36B Dude comes back, notes I’m sitting, and asks if the stewardess had told him where he was sitting. Answer was, no, she hadn’t, so he rather grumpily goes in pursuit of her.

Roll forward another couple of minutes, and the stewardess asks if I want to move to 14E. Hey, that’s a window seat, and on the “two” side of the plane, and a lot further forward, sure …

Other 36B Dude is in a snit, having followed her back. “No,” he says, snippily, “that’s fine, I have all my stuff, he’s already sitting down, no need to inconvenience both of us,” and he harrumphs forward.

The stewardess looks at me apologetically and leaves.

Not much more to tell. Being Delta, the food was just For Sale (not even pretzels for us cashless or not-desirous-of-sandwiches folk). It was a three hour flight (against a headwind), but I managed to read comfortably for most of it (as comfortable as a middle seat gets). I manage to grab my briefcase and suitcase on the way off. As I was getting off the plane, I heard one of the stewardesses bitching to the pilot about various seating and ticketing problems and observing that the Atlanta gate crew had been the worst she’d worked with for a while. I had a hell of a time finding where I’d stashed my car keys in my suitcase when I got to Denver. But the car worked, the trip home was safe, and, most importantly, Margie was waiting for me there.

And that, my friends, made all the mad scramble worth it.

Epilogue: When I got into the office this morning I had a very nice phone message from Delta apologizing for my flight cancellation and confirming that they had a reservation for me on the 10:30p flight to Denver, though there was also a 5:54p flight available …

(Why they did not call my cell phone, when that number was given on my office voice message, and, well, duh, I’m not there, I have no idea.)