Writing & Reporting
Writing & Reporting
Time flies
John Swinconeck
Journal Tribune, January 2009
I ended 2008 by visiting relatives in Kentucky, a state known for thoroughbred racing and bourbon, a combination I can’t approve of, simply because it’s unfair to allow horses to consume alcohol, no matter how humorous the results.
The visit itself was great. I got to take in all the institutions that make Kentucky culturally unique, such as a restaurant called Chili’s, something known as a “Dairy Queen” and a Wal-Mart. It was at Wal-Mart where I purchased two wristwatches in as many days. (My previous method of keeping time, on my cell phone, was no longer practical since said phone met an untimely end in a snow bank.) I hadn’t worn a watch since junior high school, when an enormous eczema patch would form on my wrist whenever I donned a Casio.
In Kentucky, the first watch was a shiny, silvery job with an elastic watchband. I had forgotten that those watchbands are used strictly by those in the dominatrix industry. Every time the band shifted on my wrist, it would yank out my arm hair. It got to be so bad that had someone dared asked me the time, I would have slapped them. I actually shaved part of my wrist in a futile effort to make the pain stop.
I returned the watch and picked up a Timex with a standard band. The watch is perfect in every way except that it doesn’t actually work. It has hands and numbers and a little light so you can see it in the dark. All very pretty. A great conversation piece, but about as useful as a fruitcake.
The watch saga, however, pales in comparison to my attempt to fly from Kentucky back to Maine, which involved hours-long layovers in both Charlotte, N.C. and Washington D.C. I don’t fly much, so I was a bit naive in thinking that the voyage was going to be relatively simple. Not so, according to this log of events:
Noon: Tearful good-bye to relatives at Lexington, KY, airport.
1 p.m. Board plane
1:01 p.m. Remember fear of flying. Begin to cry.
1:15 p.m. Attempt to dash from aircraft upon its departure, unable to open door. Settle for taking sedative and spend rest of the flight staring out window, drooling.
2:30 p.m. Land in Charlotte.
3:05 p.m. Awake from sedative to find plane taxiing on runway, about to depart for Abu Dhabi. Escape via chemical toilet and find my way inside the terminal.
3:15 p.m. - 4:29 p.m. Lost in airport
4:30 p.m. Find gate number, flight, check baggage, fight for window seat. Plane departs for Washington, D.C.
4:55 p.m. Ask stewardess if she’d “like to join the mile high club.”
4:56 p.m. Seek treatment for contusions to face, knee to groin.
5:30 p.m. Airplane slows just long enough on runway to throw me off at Reagan National Airport. I roll to a stop outside gate.
5:45 p.m. Temporary panic when I momentarily believe I’ve landed in Washington State. Looming monuments and smell of corruption makes me realize I have, in fact, landed in Washington, D.C.
5:55 p.m. – 6:05 p.m. Begin four-hour layover. Decide to wander the airport but discover security checkpoints every 200 feet. Having had my share of cavity searches by various airport personnel already, decide to stick to current section of airport and find a place to eat.
6:08 p.m. This is can’t be the only restaurant.
6:09 p.m. I mean, this is it?
6:10 p.m. Really?
6:11 p.m. But it’s so crowded.
6:12 p.m. Fine, whatever, let me just get a seat at the bar.
6:13 p.m. Christ, there’s no seats anywhere!
7:01 p.m. Smash beer bottle over head of drunken, married businessman flirting in a disgusting manner with waitress. Take his seat at the bar. Begin to shamelessly flirt with same waitress.
7:10 p.m. Begin the consumption of the first of several beers that may cost $4 at a regular bar, but because of airport surcharges, I pay $500 a pint. Totally worth it.
7:53 p.m. Having finished a $1,500 hamburger, I go sit by the gate.
8 p.m. - 9 p.m. I people-watch while listening to “Flight of the Concords” on iPod. “Concords,” a New Zealand comedy duo, makes me bark laughter every five minutes or so. Passersby have no idea what I’m laughing at and believe me to be insane. They’re probably right.
9:55 p.m. Combination of fatigue and overpriced watery American beer cause me to beg U.S. Airways employees to just let me on a plane. Any plane.
10 p.m. - 11:15 p.m. Short flight from Washington to Portland, Maine (hopefully it’s Maine) seems like days. Spend flight glaring out the window and cajoling the flight attendant to “make the plane go faster.”
11:15 p.m. Land in Portland. Check awesome new watch I bought in Kentucky to see if we’ve landed on time. According to the watch, it’s 1 p.m., which makes me wonder if I have to do the whole trip over again.
— Contact John Swinconeck at johnswin@gwi.net soon as he stops screaming.