short story

I already knew I didn’t like to fly. I’ve done it many times in my life. It’s not actually the flying part that bothers me, it’s the hassle, inconvenience and general suffering that goes with it.

I used to think the concept of suffering was innate to the human condition. I thought we were born with the idea that we preferred not to suffer. The original pioneers traveling to the western frontier knew it sucked to ride in covered wagons. Sure, it was a convenience not having to walk, but it still sucked. In fact I’m pretty sure that’s where the term, “pain in the ass” originated.         

Like everyone else, I thought I knew all there was to know about suffering. And then I started traveling by air. It was the airlines that taught me how to properly suffer. I can’t remember a single trip I’ve ever taken by an airline, that didn’t result in some level of personal suffering.

Just last week my wife and I flew from Texas to Pennsylvania. A simple one stopper in Dallas and I’m home. My E-Ticket said the total duration of my trip would be five hours. Easy peasy. Since I’m a relatively experienced air traveler, I know how to adequately prepare for the minefield of obstacles normally encountered at airport terminals. The key, is knowing how to avoid the significant suffering. That’s what’ll save you.

Ticketing and security are two major minefields I managed to breeze through without a hitch. My level of suffering had remained at zero. With my boarding pass tucked neatly in my shirt pocket, I passed cleanly through the gate…..check. My carry-on bag fit neatly in a nearby overhead compartment from where I was seated…..check. Isle seat pre-selected for additional leg room…..check. John Grisham book and reading glasses in hand…..check. The aircraft taxi’s out and somehow manages to take off on time…..check. Then the pilot comes on the intercom to inform me that we’ll be landing in Dallas about ten minutes ahead of schedule…..awesome! My suffering was still zero. As I watched the flight attendant handing out tiny cups of refreshments, I pondered the concept that it may actually be possible to travel comfortably by air. I was beginning to get cocky.

I exited the plane into the Dallas terminal with forty minutes to spare before my next flight. Learning that my next departure gate was a short distance from my arrival gate, I set off on a leisurely stroll enjoying a little window shopping on the way. I even paused to recheck my Level of suffering…..still zero. Could it be possible?

I arrived at the departure gate to learn my flight was temporarily delayed for maintenance. Apparently the previous pilot decided the breaks “didn’t feel quite right”, wrote it up in the maintenance log, and went home to enjoy the remainder of his wonderful asshole life. The airline representatives told me they hoped to be boarding in about an hour, so I convinced myself it was a nothing more than a minor inconvenience and headed straight for the nearest Starbucks. I should have remembered that denial is not an effective technique to avoid suffering. I had officially achieved suffering level one.

Four hours and three thousand dollars later, my caffeine binge was in full swing and I was seriously ready to go. My heart raced when a voice announced over the public address system that my flight was ready to board. Then again, it was already pounding out of control, so I’m guessing the announcement had little to do with it. I reassured myself, Okay, no problem, I can live with level one, let’s just get the hell out of here, and madly dashed twenty feet across the hallway for absolutely no reason.

I prepared myself for the normal boarding process and was moving through the gate when the ticket agent; a.k.a. dragon lady from hell, decided my carry-on luggage was too large for the overhead compartments. Level two. Now if I had been in a better mood, I might have commented that she was not the first woman to tell me I had a large bag, but I knew this was no place for humor. Besides, other passengers were already piling up behind me. Instead, I took the irrefutable logic approach by assuring her in my best authoritative tone of voice, that the size of my luggage had not been an issue on previous flights, and that I was sure it would fit just fine. She countered my iron clad argument with her irrefutable opinion that my carry-on luggage was too large.

Great.

When I felt the synchronized exhalation of the fifty some irritated passengers standing behind me, my level of suffering increased proportionate to theirs. Adding two points put me at level four. Concerned for my personal safety from those standing behind me, I relinquished my bag to dragon lady, I mean ticket agent, and headed down the jet way. Besides, I knew I had everything I needed for my in-flight entertainment. I can deal with level four.

I arrived at the row of seating I had preselected through the Internet a month earlier to discover my isle seat had metamorphosed into a window seat. Add a point on the suffering scale, but I don’t care. We’re leaving. I plopped down in my window seat with my wife next to me and began performing my own before take-off ritual in a futile attempt to fight back against the rising level of suffering. I was focusing on my relaxation breathing, attempting to achieve suffering level four, when ginger mom appeared. I call her Ginger Mom because she had bright red hair and I never learned her name. Standing in the isle of the plane, she asked if anyone would mind trading seats with her so she could sit with her four year old son. Poor planning on her part, was about the only thing that crossed my mind in the next two tenths of a second before my wife jumped to her feet and left me. Alone and defenseless I did some quick math in my head. Two additional points for abandonment put me at level seven. Not knowing what to expect next added another point. Level eight! Ginger mom tosses her ginger son into the seat next to me. Nine!

Eventually, the pilot pushed the throttles forward and the plane picked up speed for take-off. We didn’t skid off the end of the runway and crash violently into trees, so I considered this a good thing and subtracted one level of suffering. I also realized that since my wife had taken the seat directly in front of me, I had the unique opportunity to pull her hair throughout the remainder of the flight. Three hours of hair pulling should easily drop me back to level seven.

The wheels had barely retracted up into the aircraft and I was already reaching for one particularly vulnerable hair projecting out from the side of my wife’s head. That’s when Ginger son puked on my arm, taking me directly to suffering level twelve. Trust me, when projectile vomit from an unfamiliar four year old saturates your shirt, math calculations are no longer necessary. I was still reeling from the odor when I saw my wife looking back at me with one eye through the space between the seats. She was obviously enjoying the same odor I was. Ginger mom was already busy cleaning up her ginger son; no concern for me, when he let loose with a second round of puke in her lap. The second wave of odor increased my level of suffering to thirteen. Prior to that specific point in my life, I didn’t know the scale even went that high.

As I endured the sensation of ginger son’s stomach contents dripping from my elbow, I heard a familiar “bong” sound, and looked up to see that the airline captain had made doubly sure the seatbelt sign remained brightly illuminated. For added measure, the cabin attendants parked their drink cart directly in front of my only escape route to the center aisle. I was going nowhere. I closed my eyes in complete resignation and reflected on the entire crew’s unique ability to conspire against my best efforts to avoid suffering. Their prior planning and coordination must have been exhaustive. The timing alone was nothing less than inspiring.

I opened my eyes to the voice of a cabin attendant asking if there was anything she could get for me. Her voice was like an angel from heaven. A comforting voice that discredited all thoughts of conspiracy. I was grateful for her assistance in my time of need and asked her for whatever she had that would help. She handed me a tiny cup of Pepsi.

One week and thirty seven showers later, my suffering has diminished to level one. I don’t feel as though I can fully return to normal until I stop smelling vomit every time I blow my nose. My new therapist suggested I should stop obsessing. He’s certainly a zero.

Hoping not to wake anyone, I pulled my mother’s car into her driveway in quiet deceleration.  Something didn’t seem altogether right.  I wasn’t expecting to see my son pacing around the “borrowed” car in nervous concentration and I was more than a little surprised to see my mother’s head poking out the passenger side window at an odd angle.

I gently extracted myself from the car.  “What’s wrong? “ I whispered, my voice carrying through the still air of the night.  I squinted down at the dimly lit clock on my cell phone noting the time.  Nearing midnight.

“Grandma’s stuck in the car,” he droned, as if this was something that happened every day.

“She’s stuck in the car?  What do you mean she’s stuck in the car?  How did she get stuck in the car?”  I asked, as if these were the only words I knew.

“She can’t get out,” he explained, “We can’t find the keys.”   He shook his head and his expression leaked, You’re a moron, what’s not to understand here?

“Oh, I see,” I dithered stupidly.  I’m not normally so slow on the uptake, but at that moment, my mind was apparently folding in on itself.  I couldn’t find the connection between the lost key and the ability to get out of the car, and I seemed to be the only one who was confused.

Her head swung back and forth between us while we talked before she slid herself back through the window and began fiddling with things inside the car.  We’d been talking over her as if she was invisible and I thought I saw her glaring at us through the tinted glass.  I looked over at my son again.  Apparently something had gone missing between his brain and his mouth because he seemed to have nothing else to offer by way of explanation.  He resumed his pacing.  I continued probing while he raised his hands in the air, waggling them at me dismissively like I’d just had a lobotomy.

Yes, I was confused and I cocked my head from left to right like a parrot, and continued my parade of questions.  Annoyed, he mirrored my movements, before booming with the force of a Town Crier, “We can’t open the door without the key,” and then he went on with the arm waggling thing again while muttering something about alarms, neighbors, and noise. “And we need to get Grandma out.”

Perhaps he noticed the vacancy in my eyes, the lights-out-nobody’s-home placard I had tacked to my forehead, because he  was now speaking in italics, enunciating every syllable.  “We need a flashlight to find the keys mom, could you find one please?  I don’t know where one is.”

“Okay,” I lamely offered up into the suddenly rising tension, “I’ll try to find one.”

Mom tipped her head and slid it through the partially opened window again, “I need my phone too honey.”

I was so lost.  “For what?”  I didn’t wait for an answer, “Here use mine,” I offered, placing it into her hand through the window.

She handed it back and rolled her eyes.  “I need mine,” she insisted, “I can’t remember his number; it’s programmed into my phone.”

“Whose number?”

“Richard’s.   I’ll call him and he can bring another set of keys.”

I still wasn’t getting the whole key thing and I somehow sensed that this whole episode may have been brought on by some mishap of my son’s.  A rush of panic fluttered across my face.  That and she had on what I believe to be called a “duster” you know those frumpy house dress thingies?  I found it disturbing, for company anyway.

“You can’t call him, look how you’re dressed, and look what time it is.”  I tapped the face of my phone offering proof.   She stuck her arms through the window waving me off in a go on silly girl; just get me my phone gesture.  My mind began skidding off to some distant plane of consciousness and I was now staring off into space considering how a “duster” got its name in the first place.

Then my son’s words sliced through the air again, breaking my semi fugue state.  “The flashlight mom, we need the flashlight.”  And there was the enunciating thing again, and now shooing motions as if I was some errant child being sent off to my room.

“And my phone,” my mother piped up again, her neck and arms still wrenched through the window.  Her tone was sweet, calming, as if she expected fireworks to ignite at any moment from the powder kegs of either my son or myself.

In the glow of the street lamp, I noticed how pretty she looked.  I took a moment trying to reign in my obviously drifting mind.  This was about keys, not potential photo ops, and she was starting to look concerned.

I held my hands palms down, fingers splayed, trying to smooth the air in a placating fashion.  “We’ll get you out somehow mom,” I lied, hoping I looked every inch the part of someone who was actually in control of the situation.

I felt a headache unfurling over my right eye.  Maybe it was the bump on the head I got at the amusement park, or maybe it was hunger, as my lunch had blown off into the bay during a picnic.  Whatever the case, I moved slowly, my right leg feeling somewhat loose, unhinged, from the little race thingy I ran the previous morning.  I was concerned that it might fall off.

Like a mantra, I kept repeating, flashlight, phone, flashlight phone, hoping to remember what I was in there for.  I walked past a pile of laundry and I have no idea why, but I reached down, scooped it up and tossed it in.  Flashlight, phone, flashlight phone, I kept repeating to myself as I poured a bit of soap into the filling tub.

Something was wrong with me, really.  Electrolyte imbalance or something.  Possibly I had sweat away my IQ, but I carried on searching; everywhere…..

…….After turning over the last couch cushion, I stopped the ridiculous flashlight search and turned to go back outside.  When I got back to the car, my mother was punching numbers into her cell phone and my son was holding the flashlight pointing it inside of the car, fiddling with things on the door.  This all happened while I was searching in vain for both, with vast gaps of unaccounted for time.

Netting ourselves in unusual spots seems to be a family hobby but I believed we were reaching new heights of absurdity because no one seemed to think this was out of the ordinary.  Standing next to the car, I started to laugh.  It had a ripple effect, spreading like a rogue wave.  While hee hawing, I tried to stop her from calling her friend, but she already had.  I really thought we could handle it ourselves.

Right.  Handle it ourselves.  When we were now laughing like a trio of drunken seals.

Anyway, somehow the keys were found inside of the car, the alarms were disengaged, or something like that, but I still haven’t figured the damn connection.  Strange wiring maybe.  Anyway, mom got out of the car.  Then like magic, Richard pulled up, a twinkle in his eye, a smile on his face, and everyone began chatting as if we were at some normal midnight gathering.  God love a man with a sense of humor.  The same man who drove two hours to exchange the suitcase I had accidentally brought back from the airport – belonging to someone who lives in Dubai – and returning with the one that actually belonged to me.  Sweet sweet man.

And then I looked down, and to my horror, I realized I had run my little late night errand with my t-shirt on inside out and backwards, the tag flapping in the front like a cute little flag.  How stylish of me.  But then I also noticed that, Praise the Lord, nobody really seemed to notice, or they did,  and it just somehow struck them as normal – for me anyway.