Epic Journey, Part 3

The rest of the flight passed uneventfully. I didn’t sleep of course, partially because the mid-afternoon take-off meant that the skies stayed perfectly light the entire time, partially because I have trouble sleeping on a plane anyway, and in large part because of the upset caused by the medical emergency happening two rows behind me. We landed in Baltimore about 30 minutes behind schedule. I thought I might still make it, as long as I had very good luck getting my baggage and clearing customs. My passport and green customs form was at the ready. My carry-on was re-packed and under the seat to allow the quickest possible exit from the plane (although the fact that I was at the back of the plane somewhat negated that advantage).

But the plane taxied to the end of the runway and just... stopped. We waited at the end of the runway and at first I thought that we were just waiting for our turn to go to the gate. Then I saw the flashing lights of a string of ambulances and police cars. They pulled up to the plane and numerous EMS workers came on. They took the man off the plane and the emergency vehicles all sped away. Once they were cleared, we were able to mosey on over to the gate and deplane.

In the meantime, I had started chatting with the people sitting around me. It turned out that the person sitting directly in front of me lives just outside of Rushville, IN (hi, Suzanne!) and their daughter is applying to Our University for medical school. Die Welt ist ein Dorf... And of course, I shared my dilemma of the short time frame to clear customs and get to my next flight. There was much sympathetic clucking and jokes about bribing customs officials and elbowing senior citizens out of the way. I was torn between a philosophical resignation to overnighting there in Baltimore and the urge to cry hysterically at the idea of overnighting there in Baltimore.

Once we got out of the plane and into the terminal, I took off as fast as my little paws would carry me, dragging the rolly bag behind me. I came skidding up to the customs lanes, ready to whip out Ol’ Blue, slap the green customs form across the desk, assure the agent that I was not smuggling anything untoward in my luggage, get my entry stamp, and run. But noooooo. The lines were already quite long (how did those people get there ahead of me? I was really booking it!) and I figured that just waiting my turn was going to take all the time I had (about 40 or 45 minutes). But yet again, an angel intervened: the man who had been sitting in front of me jogged up to the front of the line and came back with the message that I could go to the head of the line. Wow!

So I slid on up to the counter, whipped out Ol’ Blue, slapped down my green customs form and smiled my best smile, ready to answer the usual questions: any cigarettes? No. Alcohol? Yes, exactly 1 liter of schnapps. Agricultural products? Nope. Currency over $10,000. Heh, I wish, but no. And Pete behind the desk slooooooowly flipped open Ol’ Blue and looked over the numerous stamps I had accumulated this summer. He scrutinized the page as though I might have spent hours perfecting the state seal of Estonia to make it look like I’d spent 6 hours there when really I was hanging out in Pakistan with Osama. Then he carefully examined my green customs form. The smile on my face grew a little stiff. Then he lazily asked me where I’d been (Dude, you just read the entry and exit visas in the passport AND the question on the green customs form that asked for the same information!), how long I’d been there (again... YOU JUST READ IT), why I was there (OK, that you couldn’t have read. But really, if I was off training with Al Qaeda, do you really think I’d tell you that? It’s like those old questions about who packed your suitcase and whether you’re carrying any explosives!), what I was bringing back with me (books, books, books, some schnapps, a bunch of magazines from Frankfurt Airport, and a vague distaste for Swedes, plus a lot of dirty laundry), how much of it I was bringing (READ THE CUSTOMS FORM! READ IT!)... He finally handed me my passport back and dismissed me with a wave. No thank you or have a nice day. Just a dismissive little waive, as though he was the King of U.S. Customs dismissing a peasant wench.

Whatever, there wasn’t time to worry about it. I fixed my sight on “Baggage Claim (International)” and started down the hall. But I only got about 20 or 30 yards before I was stopped by another customs agent who wanted to see my passport and green form and ask all the stupid questions again. YOU PEOPLE ARE WASTING MY TIME! I made it to the end of the hallway and was stopped again to show my passport, my green customs form, and to answer the stupid questions. Then I was finally allowed to enter the baggage claim area.

No baggage in the carousels. Greeeeeeeat. I was one of the first five people there. Other people had let me cut to the front of the line to speed me on my way. I ran all the way down the hall. And it was all for nothing because THERE WAS NO BAGGAGE ON THE CAROUSEL. I positioned myself directly in front of the chute so that I could grab the luggage at the first possible second. I could still make it! Eye of the Tiger! And the other people from my flight came trickling into the luggage area. But still no luggage. We waited and waited and finally, finally! the belt started. Luggage started to come in dribs and drabs, but not mine. I kept glancing down at my watch, my stomach growing tighter and tighter as the minutes ticked by. An airline employee wandered by and I grabbed her to ask that she check to see if my flight might be delayed (after all, no sense in worrying if that’s the case), but she refused. That kind of took me aback. Would it really have been difficult to radio to the desk or the gate and ask what the status of the flight is? They do it all the time on Airline. The baggage claim was starting to empty of passengers and there was still no sign of my bags. Greeeeeeat. Not only am I going to miss my flight, I am also going to end up with no luggage. RRRRRRRR! Another woman with an employee ID wandered by and I asked her to check on my flight. She didn’t radio anyone, but said “Oh, honey, that flight left 10 minutes ago”. What? That’s early! She must be kidding. Well, maybe I can get rebooked on another airline or something. If my luggage ever comes. Suddenly I wanted to lay down and start blubbering “I just want to go hoooooooome!”.

And then, finally, after more than 45 minutes of waiting, the first of the two bags tumbled down the ramp. And then, the last piece of luggage on my flight turned out to be mine. Looks like my streak of luck had run out. Well, OK. Off to Icelandair to get rebooked. At the far side of the room, there was a large arrow pointing to the exit. And under that arrow, I was asked for my passport and green customs form again. Seriously people! Does Homeland Security have too much budget and not enough real work? Then I rounded the corner and found another line for customs. Luckily for my sanity, that was the last one. They actually collected the green customs forms and let us out into the terminal with all the other people who were not stupid enough to travel internationally post-September 11th. Now, don’t get me wrong. I agree that ingress into the U.S. should proceed under the restrictions of our law and that the enforcement of those laws is an important job. But how on earth did five different people asking me for my passport and customs forms and wanting to know where I’d been and what I was bringing with me make this country any safer? Only one of those people actually entered my information into a computer. The other ones just looked at the papers. And how on earth are you going to know if I’m lying about why I was in Finland? And why on Earth did I have to fill out the green customs form???? In the instructions, they tell you that it’s to expedite the customs process. But I can’t see how it expedites anything except the destruction of virgin forests to supply the paper for the stupid things. If you’re going to require me to write it down, why have the agent ask me the same questions? The common sense way of doing it would be for the agent to read the answers and ask any necessary follow-up questions based on those answers.

Anyway, I shoved the very heavy luggage cart up the ramps to the third floor and the Icelandair ticket counter where I was now second in line. Icelandair would pay to put us up in hotels that night and give us meal vouchers, since it was now long past 9 pm and no other flights were leaving. I was called up to the desk and the girl started filling out the paperwork. While we were waiting for the meal vouchers to be brought up from the office, she started chatting with me.

“I’d be so mad about this if I were you.”

“Well, I would much rather be on my way home right now, but if someone’s that sick, what are you going to do?” (Obviously my philosophical side had returned.)

“Oh, but he wasn’t sick. He overdosed.”

WHAT?? It turned out that our “poor” heart attack victim had taken an entire bottle of Valium somewhere over Greenland. My sympathy vanished immediately. It also turned out that he was travelling with two women who couldn’t speak English, or for that matter, Icelandic. So they had no idea what was happening to him and couldn’t even communicate with the people around them. How inconsiderate! My sympathy level slipped even further into negative numbers.

Icelandair was phenomenal about this. There was no arguing that this was a circumstance beyond their control, no chintziness about meal vouchers, no one made us feel like we were ungrateful wretches imposing upon the good nature of the airline. Instead, they apologized to us, put all of us up in hotel rooms (I could hear the supervisor in the office trying to drum up more spots), and gave us $25 meal vouchers. Then they called the hotels and asked if they could send the shuttle drivers a little more often for the immediate future because there were so many of us that would need a pick up.

Then I had to go to AirTran to rebook my flight to Our Fair City. There was some confusion as to what I was talking about when I first got to the counter and I was, quite frankly, so tired that I could hardly even think, let alone try to straighten someone else’s confusion out. Luckily, another employee noticed the problem and came over to help. Unluckily, there were no flights to Our Fair City with open seats. Not that night, not the next day, not even the day after that. The next available flight was Monday morning. I did not know what to do. Could they even do this? Aren’t they required to put me on the next available flight? They wanted to send me back to Icelandair. I didn’t want to go. By this point, it is 9:30 on Friday night. I have been awake since about 2 a.m. Thursday (as in overnight from Wednesday). That means that I’ve been awake for about 43 ½ hours straight. I cannot make decisions or do anything that requires more thought than my brain stem can handle on its own. Please just help me! I kept babbling about needing to arrive in Our Fair City early enough to drive to Buffalo (no wonder they were confused, right?) and finally it hit me: why not fly to Buffalo? Oh, Lord, yes, AirTran does, in fact, fly to Buffalo. Woo hoo! And there’s a flight tomorrow morning. Woo hoo! And, glory be, there’s a seat available! WOO HOO! Money!

I headed for the front of the airport to catch a shuttle and collapsed gratefully on a bench under the sign that said “Hotel Shuttles”. And waited. And after more than 30 minutes in the dark (lighting is not BWI’s strong point), I was starting to get worried. I went inside to the courtesy phones and called the hotel. The desk attendant assured me that the driver would be there any minute. So I trudged back about and sat at the curb for another 20 minutes. And I called again. At 10:30 p.m., the driver finally drove up to the curb. He helped me on board with my baggage (all 130 pounds of it). I plopped down in the first seat on the passenger side of the bus. A few other passengers got on board, then the driver slipped behind the wheel and we took off into the rainy Baltimore night. I thought I was crazy at first. But there was a definite draft in the bus. All the windows were shut, though. Wonder where it’s coming from? At the red light, the driver put the bus into park and stood up, reached across the dash and pulled the door shut. We’ve been riding with the door partially open. How could he forget to close the door? The light turned and we headed onward—and it became abundantly clear that he hadn’t forgotten. The door was apparently broken. It slid open almost as soon as we took off again. The driver pulled over three more times before he finally gave up and just let it flap open. I wished with all of my heart that I had not chosed to sit in that front seat and tightened my grip on the straps of my backpack and the rolly bag.