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The next morning, we arrived at the hotel three hours before departure, as instructed. Since we had two connecting flights, it was imperative that the flight to New York take off on time, which, by some miracle, it did. The 11-hour flight to New York didn’t grant me even 20 minutes of sleep and was peppered with several trips to the bathroom thanks to a bout of food poisoning from which I hadn’t fully recovered. We reached New York slightly early, causing Jake and I to have a moment of wishful thinking thank we could make it to the earlier, direct flight to San Diego. After six flights landed simultaneously and formed a line that went on for miles at the customs counter, we picked up our bags and made our way as fast as possible to the terminal at the other end of JFK. After waiting in the AA line, we were told there wasn’t enough time for our baggage to clear security and we were stuck with the LA flight after all. The LA flight granted me with some sleep and it was Monday night at 10pm that we arrived in LA. At this point, I figured getting home was a piece of cake. The flight from LA to San Diego is a commuter propeller run by American Eagle. The tiny plane carries no more than 30 or so passengers. We sat on the plane, looking out the window as they loaded the bags. I worried that we hadn’t seen our bag but assumed we must have missed it when I saw it coming at the distance. The men loading had already lowered the loading ramp and so I asked the steward to please check on it since my bag was now sitting by the side of the plane. She nodded but did nothing. Ten minutes later, the men took my bag and one other bag, and put them back on the cart they came from. By now, I had been sleep deprived for three days and hadn’t showered in two. I was in no mood for a joke. I yelled for the stewardess to come back and told her that my bag was sitting there and not loaded on the plane. She finally called someone and talked for a while. She then came over and said that the plane was too heavy and they were going to put our bag on the next flight to San Diego, leaving in 30 minutes. “If you want, you can leave to travel with your bags but you have to get off now.” She then proceeded to remove four passengers off the plane. When the gentleman in front of me asked me what was going on, she said, “The plane is too heavy. You have too many bags so we’re taking some passengers off and we’ll take some more bags off and then we’ll leave.” He asked if they were sure the plane would be okay after that and she said, “Yes, but you can leave if you want.” Literally. Another set of passengers in front of me asked how they would be sure their bags made it to the plane since they heard that mine weren’t. The stewardess said, “It was just her bags, you should be fine.” Which I knew not to be correct since there was as least one bag sitting next to mine that also wasn’t making this flight. After another ten minutes of complaints, some official came on board and told everyone that when we arrived in San Diego, if our bags weren’t on board, they would be on the next plane and to wait for them. Of course, after twenty-some hours of flying all I want to do is wait at another airport for half an hour more for my bags to arrive. Several of the passengers asked the stewardess to give her name so they could complain but she wouldn’t. I don’t even mind the fact that they couldn’t arrange the flight properly, with all the connecting flights it’s hard to gauge how many pieces might make it to a plane. What I did mind was her rudeness and assumption that it was no big deal for me to wait more. She wouldn’t have even told me that my bags weren’t on the plane had I not been looking out the window. With this kind of service, the airlines deserve to go out of business.
“Oooh, ” I said, “Who’s your best friend?” He told me a name I never heard before. “I don’t know him.” “Will you introduce me to him?” “Yes, I will,” he exclaimed and then put my sister back on. Then the first one had more to tell. And then so did the other one. I could tell they are just as excited as I am that we will be seeing each other very soon. It almost makes the twenty-two hour flight worthwhile. Ps: I will be gone for a little over a week and will try to post photos from Fethiye, Turkey.
One of the first people I met in Pittsburgh was Jon, who walked up to me while I was opening a bank account with my father and gave me his phone number. I remember being baffled by his repetition of the word ‘cool’ during our conversation. Cool meant between cold and hot, to me; I had no idea of its other, more colloquial usage. People used to often ask me where I came from during Freshman year. I remember when my friend Laura and I noticed that my accent disappeared if I sang. We didn’t know why but it happened each time. Somewhere along the line almost all of my accent did evaporate but I have no idea why or how. Most of the Freshmen at my school had a dining plan that confined them to one cafeteria, Highlander, for all meals. You could have unlimited food but it had to be from Highlander. I don’t need to tell you how the food tasted. It appears there was a long-standing tradition with the Highlander trays: people claimed the trays for their own purposes. Each time we ate a meal, we’d real aloud our tray’s owners. “Tray of the Itchy Freshman,” “Tray of Late Night Phonecall.” During our many trips to the cafeteria we’d laugh at the variety we’d seen. A few months into the school year, I got “The Tray of Constipation.” I was with my friend Laura and her friend Matt. I asked Laura what constipation meant. From the look of embarrassment on her face, I thought it might be something sexual so I added “You don’t have to show me, just tell me,” which made her laugh out loud. She tried to get Matt to explain it to me but he refused. Finally, she made the face that clarified everything. Looking back, it seems funny that I didn’t know the definition of constipation twelve years ago. My accent has since then disappeared and my vocabulary and grammar knowledge have grown exponentially. I don’t know how and when the changes came about but remembering “The Tray of Constipation” always makes me laugh and realize how far I’ve come in this country. |
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