Buying the ticket online was easy enough, but getting the automated check-in machine at the airport to figure out who I was another story. None of the many pages of confirmations I had printed out contained any information that Delta’s computer could use to identify me.
With some human help and valid photo ID, I was able to get the automated system to work. (Kind of takes the point out of “automated”, doesn’t it?) I got my boarding passes and proceeded like a good little sheep to security, where I had to show my valid photo ID and boarding pass to at least three more people, empty my pockets, take off my shoes, put my plastic baggie of nose spray and asthma inhaler in a plastic box, open my New York Times crossword puzzle handheld computer for scanning and put my carry-on on the conveyor to be scanned also.
For the seasoned traveler, that is all de rigueur. For me, it was confusing. When I went to pick up all the goods I had divested to the x-ray machine, I missed the metal detector and was quickly escorted back by a stern-looking teenager posing as a TSA officer. I honestly didn’t see the thing (the metal detector, not the TSA guy--he was too cute to miss). I just figured the kid would want to see my boarding pass and valid photo ID once I picked up my shoes and other stuff.
Turns out, he wanted to me to go through the metal detector that I had missed.
After that, things went a little more smoothly. I had put off going through security until the last possible minute (turns out I could have waited longer) because I knew that once I went through, no more smokes for the foreseeable future. By that time, my Xanax had kicked in, so I window-shopped for magazines and $3.99 Diet Cokes.
The magazines were either Yuppy-fix-your-wreck-of-a-house, Ladies-Home-Journal-on-steroids or Field-and-Stream-and-Guns-and-Trucks. I declined. As did I the extortionately-priced soft drinks. It’ll take heat wave in January for me to pay $4 for a Diet Coke, and I’m talking 105 or so on New Year’s Day.
Things were better in Atlanta. The airport is huge, but they apparently limit the price of Diet Coke to no more than 25 cents over the outside world. Also, they have a “smoking lounge.” “Lounge” is a stretch: it’s a very small room with fewer chairs than smokers and, surprisingly, not many ashtrays.
Still, I thanked God for small favors: a Diet Coke that I didn’t have to take a mortgage on and a tiny, cramped room to have a cigarette in without having to find my way out of the miniature city that the Atlanta airport is, only to have to face going through security again.
I had time to grab a relatively decent tuna sandwich for, again, not-too much over the going rate in the outside world, pace some more and say a short prayer thanking God for Xanax.
From there, I was off to Nashville, Music City, USA. I haven’t flown in or out of there in close to 20 years. Back then, the airport was brand new. Or at least the terminal was. They kept and expanded the runways, but built a new terminal complex on the other side. It’s held up well, for the most part, and been expanded, even though it has the same problems of isolating secure and non-secure areas that every pre-9/11 airport has.
And it has a smoking lounge!
Before I went to get my bags or pick up my rental car, I found it and had a cigarette. Or two.
It was nicer than the one in Atlanta. More seats for fewer people, ashtrays and a big window that looked out at the plane I had just gotten off of. Someone said something about an armored car and police, so I looked out and saw a conveyor belt loading bales of money from the cargo hold directly into a waiting Wells Fargo vehicle. The man I had seen being let off the plane first and going down the outside stairs to the tarmac was inspecting and marking each bundle as it came off the plane.
I didn’t know that such large currency transfers were transported on commercial airliners, but I figured that we probably had above average security for that leg of the flight, so I was happy.
I finished my cigarettes, got my rental car and headed out just in time to beat most of Nashville’s rush hour traffic and made it to Mama’s house before the sun went down, when I have problems seeing on dark, country roads.
The trip back was a different story.
I left out from Mama’s early to allow for traffic delays or other unforeseen circumstances. Turns out the circumstance was finding a gas station to refill the tank of my rental car (so as to save the $6.99/gallon they would charge to refill it) and then figure out how to get to the airport I could see but couldn’t get to.
I spent over half an hour after getting off on one exit that had no way to turn around on for miles, backtracking until I found a gas station, filling up and then getting back on the interstate only to find that the airport exit was the one before the one I used to get onto the interstate. I got off the interstate onto another road with few turn-around spots, finally found one, got back on the interstate, and arrived just in time to turn in the car, get a receipt and go through security.
Only to find out that my flight was delayed. There was a mechanical problem. “Better that they find it now that when we’re in the air,” I thought. So I wandered off to have a beer and a margarita to wash my pre-flight Xanax down with.
When I booked my tickets, I didn’t realize my return flight would be on Commair, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Delta that’s based out of Cincinnati. That means two things: you can’t get there without going to Cincinnati, and get ready for a third-world experience.
I had done some research once I realized that I wouldn’t be coming back on one of the nice, cushy Delta jets. Commair uses Canadian-built planes that seat either 50 or 70 passengers. That didn’t bother me until I realized that they were putting 50 or 70 people into a space that could comfortably accommodate 40 or 50.
I knew something was up when I had to walk down a service stair in the Nashville airport, then across the tarmac and climb up more very steep stairs to get on the plane. If the seat I was assigned was 16” wide, I’d be surprised. My ass ain't that big, and it barely fit. And as a fairly short man (5’9”) with short legs, my knees were hitting the seat in front of me.
It was a mercifully short hop to Cincinnati. But that’s where the real third-world experience began.
As we were taxiing in for what seemed like miles from what must be the most remote runway to the terminal, the stewardess announced that anyone whose flight was ending in Cincinnati should wait by the plane to pick up their checked luggage. There would be a cart outside the plane for them to pick their luggage up at.
I double-checked that the bag I had given to the nice Delta people in Nashville would follow me on to Austin without me having to stand outside on the hot tarmac and recheck it somewhere else. Thank heavens for flying out of Nashville, because my bags didn’t require me to escort them any farther.
However, I did have to climb down another steep set of stairs, walk across the tarmac and into a hall that serves as “gates”. Down the long hall and into the cattle zone. I emerged into what looked like a cross between a shopping mall and a disaster shelter: places to eat and shop and people camped out anywhere they can find a place to sit down.
They did have a smoking lounge, by the way. Much nicer that the others with more ashtrays and vending machines that did not require a credit check.
That part of the Cincinnati airport doesn’t really have gates so much as doors. There are a few enormous waiting rooms with far too few places for passengers to sit and a bunch of doors that lead to the same hallway I came in on. To get on a plane, you have to find the right door to go through and wait until that door is boarding 1 or 2 flights at the same time, given delays and such.
Once I made through the magic door into the same hall I came in through, I had to find my “gate”. In airport lingo in Cincinnati, apparently “door” and “gate” mean the same thing. Hundreds of people swarm down the same hall looking for their "gate" at the same time. In this case, a "gate" being a door that led across the tarmac to another steep flight of stairs where I had to show my boarding pass yet again.
I was lucky.
The people who were just getting on and wanted to check bags had to tote them down that long hall and dump them onto a cart waiting outside the plane. My bag was being toted and hauled by someone else.
Before we left the ground, the stewardess made sure to point out that “we’re going to Austin, TX, and if you’re on the wrong plane, please come forward now.” In most airports, if you go through a door labeled “Gate 29”, there’s only one place you can end up. Cincinnati is a twilight zone where, if you pick the wrong door, you might end up in Topeka.
The Commair planes are small, and so are their seats. Luckily, the girl sitting next to me was skinny and did not intrude into my allotted few inches. We could probably fit the entire passenger cabin into my 1000 square foot apartment. And it was packed.
They only concession to civility was the lavatory at the back of the plane. The facilities were exactly the size of two seats. Two very narrow seats without enough legroom for even a short man.
I won’t even bother to tell you how much my left hip is hurting today from the bad seats and lack of legroom. Or how I expected to see someone bringing chickens or other livestock onboard.
Suffice to say it was overcrowded and primitive. I haven’t had to walk across the tarmac since I was in Lisbon 20-something years ago. I didn’t know that commercial operators still did that in the US.
Luckily, when we got to Austin, they had a real boarding ramp. Since I had checked my bag in Nashville, I didn’t have to climb down and then back up the outside stairs to collect my luggage at the side of the plane. I just walked on back into the first world of civilized travel.
I didn’t even fret that it was taking so long for my checked bag to show up on the carousel. After all, that little delay gave me time for a dearly needed cigarette. And I didn’t have to stand out on the tarmac and wait to tote my own bag too far.
The last time I drove back from Tennessee without Sister and dogs, I made the trip in 12 hours. From the time I left home this time until I made it to Mama's house took over 11. The return trip took as long.
Factor in 30-45 minutes to the airport, a one hour check-in time (Delta cuts check in off at 30 minutes prior to a flight's scheduled departure), layovers and the 3 or so hours it takes to drive from Nashville home, I saved less than an hour.
I don't like flying to begin with--thus the Xanax. And I don't need Xanax to drive. The price of a plane ticket cannot begin to justify the 45 or so minutes it cut off my trip.
And driving is less stressful. No going through security wondering what it was that I missed that might look suspicious even though it's totally innocent. No wondering when the plane that's not working right will be fixed and how well it will be. No being jammed like sardines into a space that not even a small human being can occupy comfortably. No driving a rental car that's okay, but that I would never pay money for because it's controls make no sense and it can't get up and go on the Interstate.
Next time, it'll be me and Baby. Baby's much better than any rental car. She knows how to get up and go when she needs to, her seats are always comfortable, and she doesn't mind if I smoke.
Just so long as I keep the windows down.
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