Master and the Middle

I had to go to Atlanta for a work thing this past week.  I had decided to do it as a day trip, in and out the same day, be back  home in the evening to  have dinner with my wife and sleep restfully on my own bed even if it meant waking up really early in the morning to catch an early morning  flight. So wake up I did, at  4 in the morning and started my day.

This was my first post- pandemic work trip and  I expected some minor logistical inconveniences to surface despite my best efforts. But how bad could it be, right? I had bought direct Delta airlines flights to and from Atlanta.  About an hour and a half  of flying time each way. The weather forecasts showed some heavy rainstorm in the  greater Washington DC area, where I live, for the evening but I hoped it would not be too bad. There’s nothing one can do about the weather anyway.

It started out  okay save for, as expected, some minor inconveniences. The Uber driver I had reserved for 5 a.m. decided to show up well ahead of time at around 4:45 but then did not wait for a single minute past their stipulated wait time of 5:05 a.m. and cancelled. I thought what the hell. Where else you are going to go at this time… But I quickly found another one and before long, I was at the Baltimore airport at around 6 a.m. to go through the security check. I realized once there that my boarding pass was missing the green check mark associated with the expedited lines for TSA passengers. My TSA clearance had expired last December and I had been procrastinating on the renewal. I went through the general security line, which was incredibly long. I could not believe how crowded it was for that time of the morning, I thought maybe all of Maryland is flying out of the Baltimore airport this morning for their summer holidays. But, no big deal, I got through security with plenty of time to spare and make the flight.

The work thing went well, I wrapped up and I had gotten back to the airport, cleared security lines and go to my gate at about 4 p.m. for the scheduled 5 p.m. return flight.  The forecasted bad weather started looming larger now and there was a short departure delay announced  till 5:30pm. Not bad at all I thought, I should still be home around 8pm, in time for dinner. I had not eaten much  during the day as I was running off to make it in time for one thing or the other. I had stolen a few bites here and there but I was looking forward to a full dinner. I texted my wife to start planning for what to have for dinner, we settled on fried rice with some veggies, pork and chicken.

We boarded the flight as scheduled, everybody was seated, cell phones turned off, bags  locked away in the overhead bin and it seemed we were all but ready to take off. At around 530, the pilot got on the microphone and announced we were being held up for take-off until 6:15 p.m. Aaah, that sucks but still not that long of a delay I thought, dinner at home is still on.  Gradually, as people started getting back on their phones and the on-board murmur grew, it became clear that our departure was going to be pushed further and further back.  I checked current weather over our flying zone and as predicted, there was severe rain and thunderstorms  pelting the DC, Maryland, Virginia areas.  The pilot took up the microphone again and said, folks I think this is going to be much longer than another 20, 30 minutes. I think we will be here till 8, 830 pm at least. I am going to let you all off the plane, so you can get out, stretch your legs, get something to eat..  Yeah that sounds good I thought. I’d rather get out, walk around and get a proper meal. At this point, my hunger was growing and if I did not eat shortly, I ran the risk of getting hangry.

I went a restaurant nearby my gate. It was absolutely packed but I got seated without  having to wait much and I ordered some fish tacos and a local draught beer. I let my wife know that I was not going to be home in time for dinner and she should go ahead and eat. I still hoped to be back home around 11 p.m. to  sleep and rest on my bed. It was about 7 pm when I finished dinner and I started walking back to my gate. The scheduled take off time for the flight was still showing 8:30 p.m. on the Delta app. But, on the way to the gate, I saw a group of flight crew members walking towards me from the opposite direction. I recognized one of the crew members’ faces and it made me realize, oh shoot, the flight must have been cancelled. I asked the guy whose face I recognized and he confirmed the cancellation. He advised me to get in touch with customer service to re-book.

Which is what I did next.  There was a bit of a mad scramble for the help desk, a big line was starting to form for the phone and the attendants. To improve my chances, even as I waited in line, I started using the Delta app to  text through their chat function with a customer service rep. I noticed on the app that the flight that  they automatically re-booked me on was going to leave at 7 a.m. the next morning, have me hang out some airport  in Michigan till 4 p.m. and then back to the Baltimore airport in the early evening. No, that doesn’t work for me I thought, let me try to get something direct tomorrow, I will wake up at 3 a.m. if I have to. Or preferably, something tonight.  I had some time-sensitive work things to take care of the next morning. I could stay in a hotel overnight but I had brought no change of clothes this being a ‘quick day trip’.  Except a change of shoes. As the evening progressed, I grew increasingly thankful that I could change into the comfort of the sneakers, out of the tight leather dress shoes I had worn during the day for the work thing. The texting through the Delta app was progressing, albeit a bit slow.  I must say by the way that these days,  I much prefer these texting option for customer service related things rather than verbal communications through phones.  One can write out specific requests and questions and minimize the chances of mishearing. There is also no extra need to verbally spell your name and having to repeat and do the whole S as in Sam and T as in Tom thing. But I digress sorry, back to the re-scheduling. There was nothing coming up for next morning direct. I said it can be any of Dulles or Reagan or Baltimore airports. I can go tonight even if it’s a bit late. After several minutes of waiting, eventually I got put on a 9:15 p.m. plane to Charlotte (about halfway to my final destination)  that would get there around 10 p.m. And from there, a 1050 p.m. flight to Dulles which would land just past the midnight at 1215 a.m. Alright then I thought, let’s catch that flight to Charlotte

I took the airport train to switch terminals and walked about 20 minutes once getting off the train to  get to the designated  gate for the 9:15 p.m. flight.  It was a mid- summer evening, so it was still  pretty bright out. Atlanta being a major hub, the airport was packed and it started becoming clear that everybody flying that day up and down the east coast was getting affected one way or the other.  All the gates were teeming with people,  long lines in front of every help desk.  The boarding for the flight to Charlotte got delayed. They said the pilot deemed the plane was too hot I guess from being left there hanging out in the summer heat all afternoon. Makes sense I thought, I can see that the pilot thinks the plane needed to cool off a bit before another hundred people got inside  to add their body heat to the metal’s. But now, I started to worry about catching the connecting flight  in Charlotte.   There was only about an hour in between. The way things were going, it was probably my only option for getting back that night and I did not want to risk missing it.  Oh, and the second flight was with American Airlines, not my original booking,  so I did not have a confirmation number that I could use with them to make sure I had a confirmed seat. It was soon 9:30 p.m. and the risk of missing the connection grew. I decided to  go and see if there were any other options with the help desk, although I highly doubted there would be any.  The line on this one was relatively sparse, but the three people who were being helped, their cases were taking a long time.  I waited further and once I got to the desk, I asked the agent if I had any other options because I risked missing my connection. I am pretty sure he did not hear me properly. Due to the crowded milieu, and speaking through a face mask, it was hard for me to hear him also. Over to my right, two desks over, there was a lady was speaking slightly agitatedly with the help desk rep. I could not hear very clearly what she was saying but a few minutes in, she started tearing up. What I did catch was she saying that her daughter was having a surgery the next morning and she  really needed to be there for that. That moment snapped me out of any sort of whining, self-pity that  I could sense coming over me due to the combination of tiredness and my general  impatience for lines, waiting, customer service.  I had some work things that were time sensitive but it wasn’t surgery. And being back home to sleep on my own bed was just a preference. Not a must.  Everybody that day was dealing with similar situations. I decided at that moment to just roll with whatever came and try my best to be patient,  try to laugh at the whole situation a little. The root cause of all this was  severe weather and no one can do anything about that, after all. Instead of prolonging my futile attempts at finding other options, I just went back to my gate and hoped that the flight would take off soon. Despite a forty minute delay, it eventually did.  I google searched the status of the connecting American flight and that was now pushed to 1230 a.m. departure and 220 a.m. arrival in Dulles. That delay was  good in a way because otherwise I would not have made it in time for the Dulles flight. At least I will be halfway home once I am in Charlotte, I thought, it’s a much smaller airport and even if I can’t get back tonight, it should have plenty of good options for the following morning to the DC area.

Once I go to Charlotte, I went to the American gate to make sure I got a boarding pass and I was not just on their standby list, which seemed to be long for each flight that day. Everybody was dealing with cancellations, rescheduling, delays, switch of airports etc.  There was no body at the desk, there were 4 or 5 people ahead of me. Although my legs were beginning to feel really tired at this point, I did not want to lose my spot on the line. So I stood there and waited. As I waited, I scrolled further down on the rescheduling email I had gotten from Delta and saw that I had a seat assignment. This indicated that maybe I was actually confirmed for this flight, not just on the standby list. But I did not want to risk losing my spot.  While in line, I small talked with a couple of other passengers both of them had their own mix of cancellations, delays, switching airport stories to share. I got to the front of the line eventually and received my boarding pass.  Relief! After the customary 30 to 40 minute’s delay, the flight did take off and landed me at Dulles at around 2.am in the morning.

At this point, you are probably thinking oh, so that sucks a little what you had to go through but now you landed at Dulles and you must have been just a short cab ride away  at that trafficless hour to your home right? Enough already now with this almost four pages long of self-pity, cut to the end, I got other shit to do. No, dear reader, there’s one more thing: There were very few cabs to be taken at the  taxi stand in Dulles. A long line of passengers waiting to get home after an arduous day started to form. The guy who was sort of trying to help people figure out where to wait, where to find shuttles didn’t speak very good English and for a little while, he confused people more than he helped them. There were maybe 10 or 12 people in front of me in the taxi line. Why  not Uber or Lyft you may be thinking. Well, I tried both those apps in parallel to waiting in line and nothing was coming up. Due to the combination of bad weather, the late hour, or early hour rather,  I guess all the Uber and Lyft drivers were soundly tucked away in their beds. Sensible people as most of them are.  After several unsuccessful attempts to get a confirmed pick up message form one of them,  It became clear that the old fashioned taxi stand was my only option. So I stopped trying. The line was clearing up very, very slowly.  For every empty tax that would stop in front of our line to pick up passengers, there were maybe  five that would drive past that were already taken from other stands at another part of the terminal. Every time this happened, there was a collective anguish that came over all of us waiting.  The guy who was assisting was also getting annoyed, people kept asking him where are the cabs, how long the wait.  There was nothing he could do after all, he could not magically summon taxis of course. At one  point, a girl walked towards us and it was obvious from the way she was walking with her phone glued to her ear, the lack of annoyance in her facial expression that  she did not realize there were no cabs around and what she was walking past was the long line for the taxi. She probably thought let me ask this guy where I can wait for Uber or Lyft here, what are my options at this hour. The guy foresaw all this and even before she opened her mouth, he went on the offense with “I am sorry, I can’t answer any questions”. The girl was understandably taken aback a little with this unwarranted hostility and wasn’t even sure  if he was talking to her. She said, are you talking to me, sorry?.. Oh this is the line for the cab,  just say that then. I laughed a little at this episode inside my head. After over an hour of waiting, I had progressed up to number 3 on the line. At about 3:30 a.m., I found myself in the back of a taxi, and soon thereafter, back at my front door.   As I walked in,  I looked at my phone it was 4:01 a.m., it had been exactly 24 hours  since I woke up the previous morning to set out for a ‘quick day trip’ to Atlanta.  And quite the full day’s trip it turned out to be!