Life in the Airport

I am embarrassed to have to admit that I pulled a complete rookie traveler move…I missed my plane home on Wednesday night. No good reason. I left the city in a car at 4 pm (2-hours before my flight was scheduled to leave). We got out of the city easily enough and I figured that we would be there in about 45 minutes.

At about 5 o’clock I started to get a little anxious. It sure didn’t seem like we were moving. I pulled up the Jet Blue site on my Blackberry so that I could check-in, then I could just print my boarding pass when I arrived at the terminal. Denied. The rule is 90-minutes. Uh-oh.

5:30 and I was REALLY starting to sweat it out. How much further to the airport? My driver was very nice and kept apologizing. It wasn’t his fault; it was a virtual gridlock in every direction. No accidents, just cars and cars and more cars. 5:45 and we pull up to the terminal. Yikes. I went into the terminal with cautious optimism…nope! Kiosk check-in closes 30 minutes before flight time. I was relegated to standing in line.

To the ticket agent’s credit, she tried. I didn’t have any bags to check, so she called the gate and asked if they would hold the plane. Denied again. Rats. Anything going into Long Beach? Nope. Oakland? San Francisco? Nope and nope again. Next flight available? 8:14 am tomorrow. Enjoy your 14-hour wait.

After paying the insult to injury $50 change ticket fee, I wandered around a bit. I called Eric because he had warned me when we talked on the phone on my way to the airport that I was cutting it close. As soon as he picked up the phone, he knew. I had decided that I was going to just suck it up and hang out in the airport…the new Jet Blue T5 is pretty nice, after all.

Eric declared me a lunatic, hung up and made a few calls. We know a LOT of people in New York, all of whom are extremely kind and generous and would smack me if they learned that I sat at the airport overnight without calling. Within 15-minutes Larry called me, gave me Annie’s number and told me that I had 10-minutes to make arrangements to go stay with her in Brooklyn or he was going to drive down and pick me up himself (Larry and his family live upstate at least 2-hours out).

Being stubborn wasn’t going to do me any good in this situation, so I called Annie and we ended up having a great evening…some pizza, tons of catching up and a humbling reminder that I am surrounded by great people who would provide the shirt off their backs if I needed it, I am incredibly lucky indeed.

After a good night’s sleep, a shower and a quick cab ride back to JFK, life at the airport seemed a pretty cool thing. I checked out the new food court, got a fine breakfast (including a rare treat, a donut from Dunkin Donuts, the ultimate East Coast treat stop), and learned to simply appreciate life’s experiences as they happen, whether in the order that I would have set them up or not.

Life is good like that.