Flight
Who litters Vitaminwater? But there it is, that black-label XXX açai flavor, two swallows of dark pink fluid weighing down the bottle’s slow roll across the looks-clean blue ridges of the light rail floor as the doors hiss open. I think about grabbing it, but don’t, shuffling past with all the other freshly-arrived from the SeaTac platform.
It’s been a long morning: up before my body could stand it and now three hours of extra morning with the time change. I don’t do coffee, but I had an adrenaline boom-bust cycle and four cups of black tea for the sake of the sugar and cream. Not enough breakfast; I needed something in my body to fight motion sickness, which I guess you can get from turbulence.
I left my ID in a purse on the table.
We got to the airport right when we meant to, plenty of time, and I grabbed my wallet to pull the ID: I’m smooth into TSA pre, usually have ID in hand and boarding pass live on the phone before I cross the airport threshold. But we shared a Lyft, so my backpack was in the trunk, so I’m late pulling my ID two steps inside the automatic doors. Good/bad thing: I recognized right away, just enough time left to hope I’d make it.
I’ll save you the suspense; I didn’t make it to the Uber to the apartment to the Uber all the way from Somerville back to Boston Logan. I hit that sweet spot where the doors had closed but the gal at security could still walkie talkie to the plane, which was still at the gate for twelve more minutes.
The effort was valiant enough for a driver who goes the exact speed limit and doesn’t know where app pickup is at the airport. Honestly, respect to her for driving her usual– though I wish she’d called about the pickup spot. Or that she’d been confident in the streets instead of needing to hesitate at every New England five-way junction. Or really, that I hadn’t spaced on the purse thing. It’s easy to imagine ways you could have saved three minutes, but it’s nobody else’s fault.
We got to the apartment, Kendall at the door with my ID and in her pajamas, Andre already boarded on the plane. It went about as well as it could have gone, not even sitting in morning traffic.
Better yet, turns out that pre-take-off time really is a sweet spot: they switched me to another flight with no extra charge or hassle. So though tears started in my eyes when I knew the race and Uber fees wouldn’t get me on the plane, it was really fine. Intact but for the emotional cost.
Re-book. Check the bag. Back in the security line. The gate’s right there on the other side but it doesn’t help to dwell. Just breathe for the couple hours’ wait, draw and read for the six more on the plane. Dumb stuff sometimes happens when you travel.
Clouds, books, Montana snow: by the time we’ve got green trees and sandy rivers, the rush is past and I’m back on the simple way home.
Two stops along, the açai bottle is gone. Somebody must have picked it up for recycling on their way out the door.
