W. Bruce Cameron 6/23/11

Jun 23, 20110

What to Do at the Airport for 10 Hours

W. BRUCE CAMERON

When I show up at the airport two hours before my flight, I am unaware that my arrival will be the only on-time part of the trip.

Security has changed from the days when they would ask you at the counter if anyone you “didn’t know” asked you to “carry something” on the flight and “light the fuse.” Now, they instruct you to take off your belt to see if your pants fall off in a suspicious fashion, remove your shoes so your socks can be inspected for terrorist slogans and take off your “outer garments” because one of the perks of working in security is to see people in their “inner garments.” Attractive travelers are selected out for a pat down, so I breeze right through the line and am soon at the gate, where I’m informed that my flight will depart on time at 6:30 p.m.

At 6:30, I notice that I am not on my way to St. Louis. “Is the flight delayed?” I ask the gate agent.

“They’re not telling us anything,” she says.

“OK, but it’s supposed to be leaving now, so it’s not on time,” I point out.

“Can I help who’s next?” she replies.

A few minutes later, the status on the electronic board changes from “On Time” to “Delayed,” and the departure time is now shown to be 8:30. “If it’s mechanical, they have to give us a voucher,” a man says to me out of the side of his mouth. He acts surreptitious, as if he’s telling me to back Misty Eyes to place in the fourth. “If it’s weather, they don’t have to do nuthin’.”

“Is it weather,” I ask the gate agent, “or mechanical?”

“They aren’t telling us anything,” she advises me informatively.

“You know, this used to be the nation’s premier airline,” I say.

“Thank you!” she gushes.

The TV monitor has a weather program playing. “The skies are clear over the United States,” the weatherman intones. “So, Bruce, if you’re flying to St. Louis, it’s gotta be mechanical. Meanwhile, in sports, Misty Eyes takes second in the fourth.”

At 11:00 p.m., all the stores close, though you can still look at the novels and magazines through the bars — I wonder if this is what it is like to shop at a bookstore in prison. The seats in the airport were shipped there from Guantanamo because they were considered inhumane — you can only lie down on them if you are able to separate your body into segments. Apparently, the people who purchased them didn’t realize that flights are sometimes delayed — maybe the airlines didn’t tell them anything, either.

The airlines people hand out pretzels and bottled H2O. They seem to feel they can keep the whole prison theme going with a little bread and water.

At midnight, they announce the good news that we’ve been assigned a new airplane.

“So it was mechanical,” I say shrewdly.

“They’re not telling us anything,” the gate agent replies.

I sit and watch a woman practice a presentation she’s giving at 10:00 a.m. She’s terrified that lack of sleep will cause her to mess up, so she does it over and over again. After the fifth recitation I’m completely sold: I will never buy any other brand of neurointerventional devices, I’ll tell you that much.

The only problem with the new plane is that it is in Dayton and apparently refuses to leave. “How long do you think it will be before we board?” I ask the guy who gave me the voucher tip.

He shrugs. “How fast can you drive to Dayton?”

At 1:00 a.m., the gate agent advises us that our new plane is in the air, on its way to pick us up. We celebrate, hugging and kissing each other as if we’ve just won the World Series.

We grow slightly less enthusiastic when we’re told that the people flying the new plane decided to turn around and go back.

“To Dayton? Why?” I demand.

The tipster guy shrugs. “It’s really nice this time of year.”

At 3:00 a.m., we’re on an even newer different plane, 9 hours late to St. Louis.

I don’t blame the gate agents, though — nobody would tell them anything.

To write Bruce Cameron, visit his website at http://www.wbrucecameron.com. To find out more about Bruce Cameron and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at http://www.creators.com.