Our Cramazing May, Episode LVIII: The Airport Saga

This story has been so long in coming that poor Rex has wearied of the wait, and poor Hoffbeast has had to tell and re-tell it, just so that I could attempt to get it recorded as it happened.  Some of the details have been lost over the years, but it goes something like this...

We had had a beautiful last day, said our goodbyes, and Daddy and Rex were off for the airport. Tom and I went back upstairs, Tom to sleep for a wonderful eight hours or so, and me to wait and hear that the guys had arrived at the gate and were loading their plane.  That was all I needed to hear, and I would join Tom in dreamland.

Not so fast.

Enter Hoffbeast, the storyteller...

"We get to the airport three hours early, plenty of time to get checked in and to our gate with time to spare.  But when we get up to the airport entrance there in New Delhi, we notice that the armed guards are stopping everyone and checking itineraries.  Rex and I have e-tickets, so the guard looks at me and says, "No, I must see paper.  Go down to Gate Whatever-it-was, and there's a printer you can use." 

We walk down to that specific entrance gate and get in the first of many lines, realizing that we really did need to print our itinerary in order for us to be able to enter the airport.  The problem is that there are lots of language barriers, but through the conversation, I'm finally able to figure out that the printer is broken.  "Oh, well, are you fixing it?" I ask.  Head motions in India are interesting...it's a little hard to tell if certain motions mean "yes" or "no."  Well, I decide, it must be a "yes," clearly. After all, surely I'm not the first person that this has happened to.  We wait a while, and then I go back up to the window, all to be told that the printer is broken, which, of course....I already knew. "Yes, well, is it being fixed?" I ask again.  I sit back down, and we wait some more. I come back later and go through the same routine.  At some point, the guy at the desk sends me to another desk to ask if American Airlines can print the itinerary for me.  When we arrive at the AA counter, the woman working there insists that our flight had left an hour before, something I know can't be true because we still have a couple of hours before the flight is scheduled to leave. Eventually I figure out that an AA flight had left but that our flight, operated by Jet Airways, is still on its way.  American Airlines agrees to try to print the itinerary, so we wait....only to find out after awhile that the woman that we had been talking to is gone.  And isn't returning.

Meanwhile, there is a nice young Indian man that Rex and I are talking to.  He had been wanting to practice his English, and since we are just waiting for the printout and seemingly have time, we oblige. Eventually, he goes up to the counter for us and is able to find out that AA had to have Jet Airways print out the itinerary, since that's the airline on which we are flying.

Jet Airways is all the way at the other end of the airport, so we walk all the way down to the other end and finally are able to get the itinerary printed.  Our helpful Indian friend wants us to stay and chat, and since we are safely inside the airport now, we stay for a bit more to talk to him. During that time, he asks what the word "ironic" means, and I find myself quoting Alanis Morissette to him, explaining that irony is like rain on your wedding day or having 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife.  My wordsmith son chimes in and correctly explains that, "Actually, irony is more like a superstitious man having six black cats."

Yes, that is irony.  As was what was about to happen to us.

Eventually, we decide we should go and say goodbye to our new friend.  As we round the corner, we are met with a huge line to get to the counter to check our bags.  When we finally get to the front of the line, we find out that our bags are overweight.  No problem.  At this point, we will just pay the extra.  Problem is that we aren't allowed to do that there...we have to go down to a different counter for that. So we walk down to that counter, pay, and finally get our boarding passes. (At this point in the story, Rex wants to insert that we just kept walking back and forth, up and down the airport terminal over and over again...it was ridiculous.)

Finally, we get in line to go through security, and it is hard core. They are checking everyone, and the line is moving very slowly.  It's at this point that I started realizing that our time is getting short. Finally, we get to the front of the line, and I put the boarding passes up on the desk. The man looks through them, then asks me, "Where are your boarding passes for your final flight to Chicago?" "What do you mean?" I ask.  "They're not there?!  Oh my gosh, I don't know!"  He tells us that we have to go back to the check-in counter to make sure we have ALL of our boarding passes.  I never did figure out exactly what had happened with that, but at this point, there wasn't time to try to figure it out--we just had to fix the problem!

When we get back to the Jet Airways counter, they're closed. So someone tells us to go to the JA office which had one of those plexiglass windows with the speaker.  There's only one guy in there, and he is paying no attention to us.  At all.  "Excuse me!  Excuse me!" I'm yelling through the speaker. And at this point, even Rex starts to get annoyed because he had noticed something about the ignoring-us guy.  "Dad!  Dad!  He's watching Youtube!"  It was awful.

This is when we start realizing that if this guy doesn't hurry, we're going to miss this flight.  Finally he notices us, and I ask him for the boarding passes.  He says that he can't help us but that there will be someone at the counter to help us when we get there.  Nope, there was no one there.  A custodian came, but he couldn't help, of course.

At some point, two Jet Airways flight attendants see what is going on and realize we are having trouble, so they try to help us. They take us back to Youtube Guy and say, "This man needs your help!  He is going to miss his flight if you don't help him!"  And he says, "Oh, we will have a customer service person meet him at the counter."  Oh my gosh....it just kept going on and on!  So we go back to the counter, again, and eventually a guy comes and says, "Why did you come so late? You should not have come so late! You have missed your flight!" SIR, WE WERE NOT LATE!  I try to explain the situation, but he insists that we were too late and that there was nothing now that could be done.

I ask if there is any way at all that we can get on this flight?  But after he insists that the answer is no, I decide, "Okay, let's get our bags and go back to the hotel."  At this point, the guy says, "Oh no, it could take a while.  We have to get your bags off the plane."  I'm like, "The plane is still here?  Well, why can't we get on the plane then!?"  But he was insistent that it was simply not possible.  We eventually have to go back to the security guy, who had started out hard core but eventually was nice. He was still trying to get us on the plane.  He tells us to wait there for a second security guy, who arrives and tells us to wait for him to come back.  So we do, but eventually, some other guys come along and tell us to come with them.  So we do, only for the second guy to find us and reprimand us for leaving.  "Why did you leave?! I tell you not to move from this place, and you did!  Why did you do this?"  After that, Nice Guy comes back and says that he has tried but that he wasn't able to get us on plane.  So, we have no choice but to wait for our bags.  

We go back to the counter, where we were instructed to go, and at this point, Rex falls asleep on the floor right in front of the Jet Airways counter--after all, it's 4:00 a.m. by this point--and I'm thinking, "I'm cool with that.  This is awkward for you, and it should be!" Eventually some guy tells me that I will have to move my son.  I tell him, "No, we're waiting for our bags.  My son is sleeping, and I'm not moving him."

At five o'clock in the morning, we finally get our bags.  We just want to get out of there at this point, but while trying to exit, I am told, "Sir, we need to see your boarding passes."  When I tell them that I don't have them because we missed our flight, he says, "I'm sorry, you cannot leave the airport.  You must go to the info desk to get them." Believe it or not, they send us back to the JA office, but eventually, they get someone to escort us out of airport.  Now we need a cab, but I have no money because we had given the last of our Indian money to the cab driver before.  There's a long line to get a cab, and when we finally got to the front of the line, we are told that they don't take credit cards. But I have no cash.  I'm thinking, "You don't take credit cards?  Now, this is one of the largest cities in the world, right? And all of your signs say that this is the fourth best airport in the world. Hmmm."

I needed an ATM and was afraid we would have to go back into the terminal, but fortunately, there was an ATM outside.  "Please work," I thought.  It did, and I was so relieved.

When we had first arrived at the airport, my phone was low on battery, and for most of the night, while texting with Hoffbeauty, my phone was at 10%.  Finally, in the cab, on the way back to the hotel, the phone dies.  Well, I can barely remember that we are staying at a Sheraton, much less try to tell the cab driver which one.  Eventually, it comes to me, but most taxi drivers in India just drive around, stopping to ask someone if they can't find the exact spot.  I am no help to him at all....after all, I've been up all night at this point and it is now almost 7:00 a.m.

Thankfully, right around 7:30, we rolled into our hotel, and I have never been so happy to see a bed! We quickly caught the mama up on part of the story....and went to sleep.

And off she went to the Embassy, having had no more sleep than us..."