reunion trip II: barbarians at the (airport) gates

i didn't get my Free Ticket. as it turned out, they didn't need volunteers after all. so i got on the plane and flew to charlotte.

lesson #3: don't get your hopes up.

flight to charlotte and the finding of the gate, etc. were totally uneventful. then they announced that the flight from charlotte to cleveland was delayed. then they announced it was cancelled. cancelled? cancelled. altogether. and we should go to a desk to get sorted out.

it was 10 p.m. can you imagine the indignation on people's faces? there was a mad rush to the desk. and we got in a switchback line formed by those things they herd people with at airports and amusement parks. and then i thought, now i'm REALLY not going, but it's too bad it had to come to this. i was tired and sweaty and greasy. and had to stand in line for an hour to get my voucher for a crappy hotel.

at least the guys behind me in line were in jovial spirits. the content of their conversation was about the deformities of member's of the one guy's unit in the navy: psoriasis and snaggle toothedness. funny enough fodder, i guess. nobody knew why the flights had been cancelled, and then at the end of the line came a new batch of people, and it eventually emerged that three flights from charlotte had been cancelled: to cleveland, to milwaukee and to gainesville.

everybody was on their cell phones. and then an airline-type person came and announced that the first twenty people could come to another desk to get rebooked, and people made a dash. *not* the first twenty people in line, but apparently the first twenty people that could show disregard for the thin veil of manners that is keeping our society from lapsing into total barbarism. line cutters are the worst kind of people to be stuck in a crisis with, if not just in general the worst kind of people.

lesson #4: a thin veil of manners is keeping our society from lapsing into total barbarism.

meanwhile, the guys behind me started bad mouthing the airline workers, saying the flight cancellation was probably because the crew members were in a union and therefore refusing to show up. argh. i started to try to take comfort in the fact that a very young couple, maybe in their early twenties, who were dripping in diamonds and what would have to be platinum, and who were wearing blindingly white pants that never got less blinding, even though everything else around them was wilting, were in the same boat as everybody else. cold comfort. i could now hear that people were starting to berate the desk workers, who are basically powerless to meet the myriad demands of everyone, and more miserable than we are. the best dressed people were acting like their problems were worse than everyone else's. the guy in front of me was on the phone with his secretary--this is friday night at 10 p.m.--finding him another flight on another airline that he insisted the agents get him, and to which they would have not otherwise had access to. he got it.

when my turn came, i said i wanted to go back to new orleans. she said in that case, she wouldn't be able to offer me a free ticket, because it would be a "trip in vain," turned around within 24 hours. i thought that sounded like exactly why she should give me a free ticket, but decided to take the high road and just take care of it later on the phone (which i did). she gave me a hotel voucher for the Ramada (brand name! not the Amada!) and a meal voucher, which i found out later was worth five dollars.

after waiting for half an hour for the airport shuttle with a lot of very very crabby people, i made it to the ramada, where from the lobby you could hear the "band" in the "lounge" "playing" the song "superfreak." while i was checking in, a guy came to the desk and asked for passes to the gentleman's club. i think it was the guy whose friends had psoriasis and snaggle toothedness. when i ask about that there club, the hotel clerk says there's a strip club right outside in the parking lot. i ask where's sthe ladies club, and about this pass issue. in that county in north carolina, you have to have a membership to get into bars. there's no ladies club. the clerk gives me a coupon for a free drink at the hotel bar.

i go put my stuff down and go back to the bar for my free drink, thinking i'll sit there and drink it. the bar is full of guys in tshirts that have skulls and flames on them, and as i'm getting my beer, one of the guys from the airport, from a cancelled flight, sidles up with his michelob ultra and asks if i am from the airport too. he has that super duper creepy vibe of a guy cut loose from his everyday life and thinks the first thing he wants to do, that he otherwise could never do, is have sex with a stranger. i take the beer back to my room. at this point, i have seen 3 men who shaved the sides of their heads, and in the back have grown what in 1987 we called a "tail." my room's window looks out onto the indoors--the central atrium of the conference center, to be exact. the sheets feel as if they are made of polyester. i order fish and chips and a six pack of miller lite from a restaurant that delivers (they'll only deliver six packs of beer, and i leave the rest for the housekeeping tip.)

lesson #5: i am a snob. and i never ever ever want to go back to charlotte.