Click here to read this story from the beginning…
Fortified by pharmaceuticals, I tried to enjoy the rest of my day.
Granted, the fact that something wasn’t quite sorted with my international-travel status is a bit of trivia that one does not easily ignore, especially with a flight pending in the morning. Visions of doom accompanied me wherever we went in Málaga, intruding upon our otherwise pleasant activities. I would be innocently reviewing the ruins of the Roman amphitheater, contemplating ancient crowds perusing pageantry, when I would get a flash of myself as Brad Davis in “Midnight Express”, languishing in a Turkish prison where there was nothing to do but sweat and wait.
Of course, Brad’s character in that movie had actually done something he shouldn’t have, which then kicked off that whole homoerotic incarceration mess. I hadn’t done anything, to my knowledge. And the flight to Spain had been a breeze, with nary a hint that I was a threat to world stability. So if I had done something wrong, I must have done it after we landed in Málaga, and the only thing I could think of that even minimally approached the level of a crime was my mangling of the Spanish language.
Oh, wait, maybe that was it. Perhaps, in a desperate attempt to order some gambas pil-pil and a tankard of cerveza, I may have inadvertently announced that I was a high-ranking official in the Taliban. That would certainly cause one to pause. And then there was that mildly-drunken night in the Cómpeta town square when I may or may not have done an interpretive dance despite the fact that no music was playing. And that time at the Alhambra when I clattered my way into a restricted area because I have an issue with people telling me I can’t do things and-
“Stop it,” said Partner.
I blinked and returned to the present, with us strolling through the gardens of the Catedral de Málaga. “Stop what?”
“Doing all that drama crap in your head. There’s nothing we can do about your flight status until we get to the airport. We’ll just leave a little bit early and take care of it.”
I sighed. “You’re right. I’ll stop worrying about it.”
This was a complete lie. But I did calm down a little bit and, eventually, I even stopped trying to check-in on the Delta Airlines app every thirty minutes. That heinous message that kept popping up, saying I needed to physically speak with a Delta agent, was slowly destroying my soul. (Modern technology can be wonderful, but it can also create new anxieties. Back in the day, I wouldn’t have known there was an issue until I showed up at the airport. Of course, back in that same day, security at airports was negligible at best and there was no such thing as “flagging” passengers. You could waltz onto a plane with a harpoon gun and nobody would say a thing.)
Side note to those of you of a certain age: Remember when they allowed smoking on airplanes? (There were actually ashtrays in the armrests.) It was a ludicrous arrangement, with “smoking” and “non-smoking” sections, despite the fact that we were all in the same metal tube and that smoke was going everywhere. And the flight attendants were called “stewardesses”, a word that is now verboten, and they all looked like Barbie dolls, sporting skirt-suits and perfectly coiffed hair, lacquered with so much hairspray that all those cigarette lighters going off posed a spontaneous-combustion threat.
We headed back to the hotel in the late afternoon, as we had a very early start the next morning. (We had arranged with the front desk for a 4:00am wake-up call and a taxi at 5:15, since our flight was at 8:15 and we had to deal with that whole business of me being flagged as an infidel, never mind the usual torture of getting through security.)
To ease ourselves into slumber, we watched movies on Partner’s laptop. One of them was “Finding Dory”, the sequel to “Finding Nemo”. Have you seen that thing? It’s actually very traumatic for a kiddie movie. Poor little Ellen DeGeneres went through some serious psychological drama in her fishy childhood. It’s like those old-school Disney movies, where parents are always dying and Pinocchio is tormented by fever dreams. Walt Disney was just a bit warped. And don’t even get me started on “Old Yeller”.
Despite our best-laid plans, I still didn’t drift off until after 11pm.
At 3:57am my phone pinged. I refused to look at it, because I still had three minutes of sleep left, damn it. At 4am, the wake-up call from the front desk arrived. Partner handled it professionally and thanked them. (I would have thrown the damn instrument against the wall, because I was in a mood.) I picked up my phone and checked out the ping. It was a text from Delta Airlines, with the glorious news that our 8:15am flight was now delayed and wouldn’t be leaving until after noon.
Hold up. What about our connecting flight in New York?
Delta texted again. “You will not be able to make your connection in New York. So sorry. You will need to make new booking arrangements.”
I will need to make them? You screwed this up.
Third Delta text. “We screwed up. Click here to speak with a booking agent who will do her very best to pretend that this is not the crapfest that it is.”
First text from Expedia, the app I had used to set up this whole adventure. “Word on the street is that you’re screwed. Please don’t hold this against us when you fill out our customer-satisfaction survey, should you ever make it back home. Have a nice flight!”
I looked over at Partner, who had that bleary-eyed expression one has when one has stayed up too late in a foreign country, watching Dory get traumatized when they should have been sleeping. He noticed my own expression and his eyes narrowed. “What?”
“We’ve got a problem.”
Click here to read the next bit of madness in this series…
Categories: My Life
Bonnywood Manor 
I like to travel but I don’t like where this is going.
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My exact thoughts as the day progressed…
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What a whimsical notion of ‘progress.’
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see – stay home, lounge on your own lounge, never worry about flying again.
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But I want to see all the pretty places… 😉
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Thats what the internet is for 😆😅😂🤣😛
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The word screwed always makes me worry.
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You and me both.
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Your lovely cautionary tale in three (or more) parts is bolstering my resolve to NEVER get on a plane ever again (well unless I’m going to Montana. Driving to Montana, even from Northern Utah is insane and I won’t make that mistake twice). I do remember the times when flying was carefree and relaxed (not that I ever got on a plane as a child or teenager. We was ‘po). I saw the ads and thought being a stewardess must be the most glamorous profession going. Of course when I was old enough to potentially pursue that career goal, my self esteem had suffered a fatality and I was convinced I couldn’t be a stewardess, any more than I could be a beauty queen or even sought after as a dance partner. Ah memories…
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Your lovely cautionary tale in three (or more) parts is bolstering my resolve to NEVER get on a plane ever again (well unless I’m going to Montana. Driving to Montana, even from Northern Utah is insane and I won’t make that mistake twice). I do remember the times when flying was carefree and relaxed (not that I ever got on a plane as a child or teenager. We was ‘po). I saw the ads and thought being a stewardess must be the most glamorous profession going. Of course when I was old enough to potentially pursue that career goal, my self esteem had suffered a fatality and I was convinced I couldn’t be a stewardess, any more than I could be a beauty queen or even sought after as a dance partner. Ah memories…
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Despite all my misgivings, I will still find my anxiety-riddle ass on a plane with some degree of regularity. I really love visiting new places. It’s the transport that kills my soul…
I also wanted to be a flight attendant at one point, roughly around the age of 7 or so, due to those very same ads you perused. (This should have been a clear sign to my parents that Junior might be a little bit special, but they didn’t add up the numbers until later.) By the time I was old enough to pursue that career path, I had already decided that making other people comfortable and happy was not my strong suit… 😉
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Waiting nervously.
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Oh, it gets even more intense, as I’m sure you’ve realized by the subsequent submissions…
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Too funny, Old Yeller indeed. That movie had me sobbing as a child and vowing to never watch another dog movie again!!
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Me too! I couldn’t believe that my parents would even let me watch such a traumatic movie. Then again, I’m sure they were just happy that I was sitting still for a few hours and not needing any direct supervision… 😉
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Don’t take this the wrong way, but maybe the universe was sending you a message: Stay in Spain! 😉
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Oh, not taking it wrong at all. I would love to stay in Spain, if it weren’t for the pesky aspect of having to give up my US citizenship at some point. (Spain and the USA do not have a dual-citizenship agreement at this point.) That makes me a little itchy….
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The plot thickens!
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We interrupt this broadcast to announce you are not being stalked by a Lockwood-shaped shadow. By accident or design, we clearly have shared portals of entertainment and are currently in sync with our perusal! I am self-consciously aware of being directly behind you on a number of occasions. I’m starting to look weird!
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MyDang: As it always does, here at Bonnywood. Or at least I pretend like it does…
Gwyneth: I fully welcome your stalking, especially if you wear overly-dramatic hats and shifty sunglasses, creeping about in the background. It just seems fitting…
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🤣🤣
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Dear Mr Lageose. At this point, I am still more entertained than I am terrified. However, as much as my heart wants to read on, my head is saying ‘Don’t go there’. My fears are not your responsibility, but I have to get on a plane in the autumn. Do I read on Mr Lageose. Do I?
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Dearest Gwyneth,
My lawyer has informed that the most legally-safe response to your query is this: “Brian is not certified as a security analyst or travel agent of any kind. All decisions made by readers of this blog fall under their own jurisdiction of responsibility and ownership of resulting mishaps.”
Non-lawyerly, I think you’ll be fine. It was not a fun experience and I said some very bad words, quite often, but at the end of the day, it really wasn’t all that much, just annoying. And I got five blog posts out of it.
Much love,
B.
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Dear Mr Lageose. How utterly lawyer-ly of your lawyer to respond in that manner. However, you have been most helpful. I desperately would like to continue with this saga, just didn’t want read about how you nearly dropped out of the sky. All other tragic events eagerly looked forward to. If things didn’t go wrong in life, we may never have met. So bring on the mayhem, it gives us much to be thankful for. 😊
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Oh no!!! This sounds very nightmarish indeed…but I can’t stop reading! I am totally binge-reading your nightmare today.
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I can just picture you sitting at your PC, eating handfuls of popcorn and scrolling through the episodes. It’s a lovely image, really, one any fledgling writer should cherish…
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