The Jews have a saying: Mann traoch, Gott Lauch. Man plans, God laughs. Best made plans of mice and men often go to shit. But it's especially hard on the mice. The cable guy will be over there precisely between 8AM and 5PM. Fedex will deliver at the time you're at work or stepped out. Your wife's baby will be delivered early. Or late. Or your wife will go missing. The barman will lose his bonhomie. The hitchhiker will turn out to be a serial killer. And you can forget about making a grocery list because you are lucky if you find one thing you were looking for without compromising brand, size, price or sanity.I flew back to NYC on a business trip a month ago. It has now come to an end. My departure last Wednesday was scheduled during the horribly malapropped "snowpocalypse" by all the fake news companies, essentially all the news companies, that are still calling the collosal recent clusterf@ck of an economic collapse a "recession." All the flights were cancelled, schools closed, mayor advised everyone to stay home. As mayor Bloomberg's compensation is famously only $1 a year and he, ostentatiously, has to take a $2.5 subway ride to work, any workday is a substantial 150% loss on his balance sheet EVERY DAY, NOT COUNTING HIS RIDE BACK HOME when he reportedly gets home by diamond helicopter. Thank God for regressive tax laws. Bloomberg saves a chunk in deductions by the end of the year. It's for the birds, but any amount of deductions for his massive 10 billion dollar empire is a gain. As a result of this "snowmageddon," I have been unable to fly out along with everyone else on the Eastern seaboard. My departure was moved two days ahead as the intervening flights have been quickly nabbed by the streetwise straphangers.
This marks the third time in my life as an itinerant that I have been unable to catch my scheduled flight out of NYC. The first time was when I tried to make my maiden voyage to Seattle, to which I moved without so much as a look-see. I really had no idea where I was going at the time beyond some complimentary words by tourists and a Wikipedia entry. From this I knew that Seattle was an incredible resort town that for three years in a row was ranked as the most educated place in the US, and one of whose two seasons was basically spent underwater. Moving to Seattle was a leap of faith, as I described it since, and it worked out very well for me. Thanks to the surfeit of vacant apartments in the city and to my employer because of whom I was able to take an unpaid week of administrative leave, I landed in Seattle on Sunday, landed an apartment contract by Wednesday, and moved basic Swedish furnicrap (aka Crapea) in by next Sunday. I did have to order the mattress via expedited delivery from US Mattress. Unsurprisingly, it was late, so I spent nearly ten days on the floor. I hadn't slept on the floor since I moved, as a newly-minted fellow at the National Institutes of Health, in my brand new ground-floor 300 sq foot Buckingham in a residential complex situated on the next-to-terminal station of the DC metro's Red Line. The first several days I was making do with a deeply discounted air mattress I bought at Bed Bath and Beyond. The reason for the discount became obvious when in 72 hours floorboards started tickling me through the mattress. I used the pump the second time. The pump blew the fuse. I said good-bye to the mattress. Kudos to Bed, Bath and Beyond for the refund. Since then I had slept on the floor until I got the real deal. Afraid of suffering a heart attack after opening my bank statement, I subsisted on Subway sandwiches and sodie pop the first two weeks. Subjectively I lost ten pounds, not so much because of the Jared diet, as of the fact that all streets in Seattle for some reason go uphill at a right angle, and, being a native New Yorker, I did an awful lot of apartment hunting a la carte.
The first time my flight was aborted was when I tried to fly out to Seattle. I used Delta as my carrier. Delta has a poor reputation and deservedly so. The Delta terminal was overloaded beyond capacity. It was not so much a fire hazard as a biohazard as, so confined it was, I routinely found myself inside random strangers. Baggage check-in had a Soviet-style bread line with only one Delta representative behind it. Obviously by the time I reached her, I was told that the baggage compartment has been sealed and unless I had 20 grand to pay the airport fine for opening it up, I should lose the luggage and try and make it through the Soviet-style security check-in bread line. I tried to speak with the manager until his shift ended and he was replaced by another manager. I tried to speak with the other manager (by that time an hour passed) and was told she had no power so I should call Delta and rebook. I called Delta's operator and threatened to sue. I was told the mailing address and number of the Delta HQ office and congratulated on the reasonable decision. That took me by surprise a little. Who am I kidding? That took me by surprise like a jolt of electricty. I gave up and went home. That night I placed at least four other phone calls to Delta. I cursed, I spat, I bargained, I wished the plague take them, I tried to deal with the consequent denial and acceptance. Kubler-Ross be damned. In the course of all this I found out that Delta often overbooks its flights and, as a result, denies passage to a fraction of its passengers. In fact those passengers were present, complaining, to the same manager, as they had been on a layover and their kids and extensive vacation luggage had to spend the night at the airport. I swore then and there that I would advertise how Delta bankrupted me to everyone I knew and make every effort to ruin them. The next day I was able to ruin them a little by buying a $600 Delta ticket to Seattle. The latest news is that Delta is merging with Northwest airlines. No doubt thanks to my efforts. We will cross paths again, Northwest. We shall see who is the last to laugh.
The second time I tried to fly out of JFK like a loser, I did this on somewhat of a gamble. This was November 2009 and I was planning to come to NYC for Thanksgiving to visit with my parents. At the last moment I was asked to go on a business trip to DC. The business in DC would happen one week eariler than my planned vacation and I agreed. By that time I had already booked my flight in and out of NYC by Continental. Since I was flying to DC on the government account a week earlier, I did just that. I caught Amtrak from DC to NYC, boarding at third call, nearly missing the train because of an ill-timed attempt to work out at the hotel gym. I spent the four hours uncomfortably scrunching my knees since I got a bad seat and the Asian lady across from me ordered me to move my legs one way so our legs wouldn't touch. The rest of the time she spent making faces and pretending she was made of different shit than the rest of us, peons. Ooooh, the touching taboo! What happened to the good ol' days when you could slap your secretary's butt and tell her to get you a coffee and a pack double fast? By the end of my homecoming I tried to print a Continental boarding pass and was told that my flights were cancelled. After a heart attack or two, few sputtering calls to Continental during which I cursed, I spat, I bargained, I wished the cholera take them, I was told that by not boarding the flight to NYC, I forfeited my right to fly out of NYC. Please, someone, please, explain to this idiot if it makes a damn mote of sense to you. I was and still am at a loss for words. I swore I would never fly Continental and advertise it to all my friends. So, friends, I am insistent in my instructions to you to avoid Continental at all costs. Thanks to the wonder of recession combined with holidays, I was able to get a great deal from Virgin America, absolutely the @#$!ing best airline company I have ever used, to fly NYC - San Francisco for $100 with a day's layover in SF and a $40 flight to Seattle. I had a blast in SF. Took the Aquarium tickets for a cheesy boat ride underneath the Golden Gate bridge and saw Alcatraz island from the side looking away from Fisherman's Wharf. Still, I overpaid for my tickets and was mightily pissed.
The third time I am not able to fly out of NYC is presently. So if this is fate and I am not supposed to finish this blog, cry a tear for me. I take personal checks. Make them out to Disaffected Itinerant. Disaffected Itinerant, he who never learned to taste that ever-rare fruit of things-going-smoothly.
(Update)
I wish this was a joke. I just went to see my dentist and...the electricity was out. This is not Hickville, mind you. This is New York City in the 21st century. I spent an hour waiting for the dental technician guiding an electrician in a daring replay of blind leading the blind determine whether there was current in the walls with a magic wand. I left the office.
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I love you. :-* <3
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