Ready for holiday travel?

As the holiday week approaches and with it the reality that 44 million Americans will be traveling, I am doing my best to overcome the temptation to trade in my airline ticket for a frog and hop all the way across country. This is because of what happened to me several years ago in a major metropolitan airport. With sincere apologies to my hero Anne Lamott, I call this “Traveling Lord-Have-Mercies.”

They say it’s not the destination, it’s the journey…but after three days of being stranded in an airport, I have to disagree.

In this modern age of convenience, getting somewhere shouldn’t be so hard—after all, we’re not in covered wagons anymore wondering if we’ll make it over the pass before the first snowfall. Remember comedian Alan King’s hysterical routines about just trying to navigate the airport? I also have a vague childhood memory of my father relating a story about his father being stranded on a lonely dirt road in Utah and stopping to ask for directions. The local resident listened politely, scratched his head, and said, “You can’t get there from here.” I remember that when I heard it, I didn’t really find the anecdote all that amusing, though my father would laugh heartily upon each telling.

Funny how your perspective changes. The Donner party has nothing on me.

My story took place a few years ago, during a Titanic weekend at a major international airport, courtesy of an airline that for some reason, wasn’t particularly motivated to get me anywhere. Even now when pressed for details my heart rate increases ever so slightly. It’s akin to recounting a kidnapping or abduction. My only consolation is that I eventually escaped…as Dorothy exclaimed, tears running down her cheek, little Toto fleeing the Witch’s tower…”You got away! You got away!”

Never mind the sordid details: planes leaving earlier than they were supposed to, doors shut in my face, no one at the ticket counter to help me re-book, misinformation (okay, lies), rude agents, being handed a voucher for two overnight stays at a nasty airport hotel (“Yes, you have to pay for your room”), wearing the same underwear for three days, watching new customers board airplanes I was supposed to be on, agents unable to tell me why I was repeatedly bumped from the standby list, lying in a prenatal position, crying in the bathroom, airport food…no, what really stays with me about this whole incident is what it did to me mentally. Let me put it this way: I now understand Patricia Hearst.

I’ve heard of the Stockholm Syndrome, where captives are deprived of basic necessities, with no control over their surroundings, and eventually grow to blindly follow their captors. I never used to get that. But after being ignored and pushed aside for three days with no sense of escape, I began to feel my inner defenses break down. I lost my sense of who I was, or that I mattered every bit as much as anyone else in line. A blindfold and a closet couldn’t be far away.

All I wanted to do was to get on a connecting plane to a particular city.

And have a real meal. Change my clothes. Breathe outside air. Yet, it was clear as each hour, and finally, almost three full days went by, this wasn’t happening. And hey, it wasn’t my fault the plane on which I flew into this airport was late to begin with.

As I quickly passed through anger, disappointment, exhaustion, fear, new rage, resentment and amazement, I began to sink into a vat of resignation. As thick and insidious as any pit or quicksand, it was as though I was disappearing…from the airline’s wait list for each flight, from my fellow travelers who scurried to their planes, from anything familiar.

Like that crazy bug-eating guy in “Man vs. Wild,” I was willing to do whatever it took to survive.

I checked out every lounge. I walked regularly to keep my blood flowing. I looked out the windows and wondered what people who were not prisoners were doing. Finally, I bonded with a stranded couple sharing this life-in-hell experience with me. Together, we plotted our strategy: find one nice, compassionate person, grab his or her ankles, and refuse to let go until we were on board a flight to anywhere. Somehow, it worked. We found that one human being who actually took action to make sure we got on a plane. Never mind that it was going to the wrong city. At least it was going somewhere.

Giddy with anticipation, we literally ran down the jet way, stripped of dignity, restraint, and by this time, any trace of hygiene. Once in our seats, the overhead video screen turned on and began to play a commercial. In it, the smiling president of the airlines cheerfully began, “I hope you will think of us again when you have travel plans.”

You bet I will.

Being an optimist (or more honestly, a realistic optimist) I just know all will go well this time, mainly because I won’t be on that airline. And I actually do enjoy traveling. But I’ve had to be smarter about it for sure. So if you are preparing for an airline trek, be safe, be well and if your inbound flight is canceled, remember to make sure you still have reservations going outbound—or you could be taking a frog home.