Unlikely Words

Any good story needs to start with a conflict or, if it’s going to be a classic, a fatal character flaw. Though not fatal, the theme of this story is hubris.

Our flight to London was to take off from Boston at 9:00. We planned to catch a 5:30 bus from Providence to Logan, and arrive at the airport in plenty of time. Because the bus left so late in the day, we left all of the packing until the morning. It sounds like a bad idea, but even with 4 loads of laundry, 3 trips out shopping, lunch, and a fair amount of time spent sitting exhausted on the couch in front a fan, whining about the humidity, we were both packed and ready to go by 2:30. I think I actually said something like, “Damn, we are awesome. This trip is going to go so well!”

Hubris. At 4:45, five minutes before Leigh came to pick us up to take us to the bus station, I picked up my suitcase to bring it downstairs. “Hmm,” I said. “This is pretty heavy.” Remembering our last trip and the frantic re-packing of clothing in the airport to get our bags under the weight limit, we got out the bathroom scale and gingerly weighed the bag; 54.5 pounds – four and half pounds over the limit.

Panic ensued. How many pairs of shoes did I really need? Could I get by without a long-sleeved t-shirt? Could I carry my jacket instead of packing it? Could Rachel take a pair of shorts in her suitcase? Why is it so god-damned humid?

Ten minutes and six pounds later, we were at the bus station, catching our breath, and 90 minutes after that we were getting off the bus at Logan. Logan Airport is a suburb of hell in the best circumstances and sorta-rushing for an international flight is not the best of circumstances. We realized we were heroes when we could bypass the endless “regular” line for the British Airways and get into the much shorter “checked-in online” line. We counted the number of people in front of us (two) and high-fived each other.

Hubris. Jake Johanssen has a comedy routine about how he hates the line for the counter because “you always get behind some guy who’s taking his monkey on vacation, and you have to wait while he fills out the monkey form. (Mimes turning page on a clipboard.) ‘And what did the monkey have for breakfast this morning?’” The first person in line, a single man with no baggage to check, got up to the counter, had a brief conversation with the agent, and then turned and waved forward three other people who had been standing in the non-special people line. The four of them then took fifteen minutes to check-in. We kept watching the time, and reassuring ourselves that we were doing fine, we’d have to hurry, but as long as the line at security wasn’t too bad, we wouldn’t even been rushed. Our levels of airport rage built until they finally assigned an agent to stop servicing the normal people line and start helping out our line, and then it didn’t take long to get us to the counter.

I can’t tell you how excited I was that our British Airways ticket agent had a British accent. It’s stupid, I know, but I would have been really disappointed if she’d just been some Bostonian. This, I decided, was the real start of our trip to Europe. It’s like I’m in England already!

Leaving aside the fact that Rachel and I weren’t seated together for the 5 hour flight, we checked in without effort, and made our way to the security checkpoint. “Hey,” I said, “this line doesn’t even look that long, and they look like they’re splitting the line into three; this should go quickly!”

Need I even say it? Hubris. The line didn’t look long because they had snaked it around a corner, down a hallway, and back again. You could only see about half of the line as you approached. And yes, they split into three to check tickets and IDs, but then they funneled everybody back into the same line, so people who were behind you ended up ahead of you, and you ended up with all the hassles of, say, merging into traffic only on foot, with carry-on baggage. Not ideal.

We got through, though, and what’s to say? A very nice man agreed to swap places with me so I could sit with Rachel. The flight attendants all spoke with the effortless professionalism that seems to come for free with a British accent. The safety cartoon had a nice inter-racial couple in it. The in-flight movie selections included “Good Night and Good Luck,” which I’d really wanted to see. The flight included a hot meal, with complimentary wine. I even got to sleep for a bit, as our plane raced towards the sun and I set foot, for the first time in my life, on another continent at 8:00 am London time.