Travel or Travail

One of the realities of life for many of us, is that we must at times put ourselves completely at the mercy of people who don't know us, who think of us not so much as humans, but as widgets to shuffle around. These people are able to compartmentalize us in such a way as to avoid feeling empathy when they shuffle us into places we don't want to be, for longer than we can bear.

Of course you get it - I'm speaking of the airlines here.

Taken individually, I am sure each and every person who works for airlines, right up to the CEO (and discounting the lawyers), are nice people who love their families and are kind to small animals. When functioning individually and collectively as part of an airline organization, however, they can be anything but nice - they can all be like the lawyers.

Now, it should be said that you can find some people representing the airlines who are nice to you and helpful when you need it. And when that happens it is so refreshing that it almost brings tears of gratitude to your eyes.

More typically, it's tears of barely suppressed anxiety you find welling up, as you stand in endless lines at customer service desks, or stand like a zombie staring at standby lists as your name sinks ever lower in the rankings and the available seats vaporize.

I don't want to be too negative. The airline I am currently traveling with did get me to my destination - eventually. It only took seven and a half extra hours. And it really wasn't entirely their fault. Well, one part was - a mechanical fault that grounded my original giant silver bird of transport, but mostly it was weather. But they did make the worse of a bad situation.

Oh well, such travails due engender human interaction, bringing experiences and new acquaintances, even if temporary. I did meet a couple from Brussels who were just heading home from a 5-day forced stay in San Francisco, thanks to that volcano in Iceland that no one can pronounce. Now they were stuck (but much more briefly) at O'Hare. And there were others, but the memories are fading ...

I don't feel a sense of loss though, I'll be making more friends soon - the airlines will see to that.

By the way, the airline guilty in this tale is none other than the very same one that afflicted me earlier. I just can't seem to learn from experience ...