Summer Vacation Part 1

Two Wednesdays ago was supposed to be a monumental step in Shelbi's and my life as parents. We were ready to attempt Elliott's first ride in an airplane. From the moment our trip to Chicago had been conceived many months ago, I had literally played out every scenario of our flight in my head. Situations ranged from:

Elliott being an utterly delightful toddler for four hours, happily eating his snacks and charming everyone in the cabin including, by monumental coinicidence, the CEO of Huggies who happened to be riding in first class and offered us millions of dollars to make Elliott their new poster baby. 

to

Elliott running up and down the aisle the moment the plane took off, spilling drinks, ripping headphones out of businessmen's ears, biting flight attendants and developing a raging ear infection.

Everything was on the table. Many parents who have what I like to call "boring babies" don't have to worry about things like this. They have toddlers who are perfectly content to sit still for hours at a time, slowly and politely flipping through the pages of book after book without uttering a sound. This is not our child.

Ours is the one whose idea of coloring is to see how many crayons he can fit in one hand before beating the crap out of a picture of Barney with them like a meat tenderizer. He is also the child who recently started climbing up on our small coffee table, counting to three in gibberish with his fingers in the air and then stepping off into the nothingness on his way to a spectacular fall. Clearly a calm four hour flight was not something we were banking on. But we were prepared. While we have tried to limit his television watching, we fully planned on letting him gorge himself on Muppets. After all, he was on vacation too. We were armed with a CD case full of Sesame Street and Muppets (even the crappy more recent ones) and Shelbi had even made Elliott practice using headphones for a week prior to the flight. We were as ready as we possibly could have been.

But a funny thing happened. You see, we were flying standby. I knew that flying standby was a risky proposition but I really never anticipated the eventual results. We arrived at the airport at 4 a.m. on Wednesday. Elliott was fantastic waiting at the check-in line and through security. We got him a blueberry muffin and cracked open a new Sesame Street book. So far, so good.

I first sensed problems when a handful of other travelers straggled up to the ticket counter to ask questions about standby. Then came the announcement where the attendant referred to the 6:12 a.m. flight as "extremely full". Perhaps the worst sign was when a pilot approached the desk hoping to hitch a ride and was quickly turned away. An actual pilot was not getting on this flight.

No big deal. We figured we might miss the first flight to O'Hare. Hopefully a handful of seats will open up on the 8:30 flight. After multiple loops through the terminal and even a 20-minute nap in his stroller, Elliott was more than happy to play on the moving sidewalk for 45 minutes. It was so successful that I'm having one installed in our house this weekend between the couch and the refrigerator. 

Passengers started arriving to catch the 8:30. The first announcement was made. "Ladies and Gentlemen this flight is oversold." Not encouraging. "If anyone on this flight would like to give up his or her seat for a $400 voucher please see the front desk." But then came the kicker. "Please note that if you are giving up your ticket, your travel plans should be flexible, and I mean EXTREMELY flexible." What this basically meant was: "We can get you to Chicago at some point but it might not be during this equinox, you're going to have to bring a parachute and, I'm going to be honest, one leg of the trip is going to be on a camel."

This was bad news. As it turned out, two passengers who had paid full-price for tickets and had reservations were bumped from the flight. Then the fun started. Actually, it would have been a lot more fun to watch if Shelbi and I hadn't been in a constant state of panic that our tired and confused son could, at any minute, blow a gasket and sprint down the ramp while waving his hands in the air, causing the airport to shut down entirely for two hours.

Airports are fascinating places. People are constantly on edge and often at their absolute worst. While Shelbi took a turn riding the sidewalk back and forth, I watched the pair of ticketed passengers go through the 7 stages of grief with the airline employee. Well, actually, it was pretty much just seven different levels of anger. 

It was interesting to watch the two passengers' approach. After the initial shock wore off, one went with the well-tempered, "how can we work this?" approach. The other went with full-fleged venom and personal attacks. I'm still not sure if this particular airline attendant simply had no soul or if she was just brilliant at her job. Nothing fazed her. These people were not getting on the plane and, frankly, were probably not getting on any plane until at least tomorrow. There were a few insincere apologies and then a lot of loud typing at a computer, minimal eye contact and shoulder shrugging. I'm pretty sure if I had been in the same situation this woman would have somehow made me feel guilty for her company's enormous gaffe.

A few minutes later, when the counter was clear, I very nicely approached and asked what our chances were of getting to Chicago at any point today. The woman clicked a few keys and read the verdict. The 10:30 flight was also oversold. The 1 p.m. flight was completely booked. The evening flight was oversold and the red-eye had one seat left which would assuredly be taken soon. In fact, in seven hours at the airport we had actually lost ground on the priority list behind overbooked passengers. It was the equivalent of waiting all day in a half-mile long line at Disneyland and taking 5 steps backwards by the time the park closed.

There were only two pieces of good news. First, our bags had not been sent to Chicago without us and were easily retrieved. Second, there were a handful of people at our gate who were having a worse day than we were. And that's always nice. Here are the people we encountered who had the worst days:

1. The middle-aged woman and her wheelchair-bound mother who were in front of us on the standby list. One seat opened up on the first flight of the day and the woman's husband took it as the group assumed it would be easier to get two people on a plane later in the day than it would three. Who knows how long that man spent in Chicago awaiting the rest of his party. At least 48 hours. Probably longer.

2. The man who missed the first flight of the day by exactly 12 seconds. The doors closed, he walked up to the gate with a stupified look on his face. Not only did he miss his flight, he was immediately placed behind every oversold passenger for the rest of the day.

3. The first woman who was overbooked and bumped off the 8:30 flight. She was hoping to get to Chicago even earlier and opted to try and fly standby on the 6:12 flight. But what this did was take away her confirmed seat so, when the next flight was oversold, she had no seat reservation and was bumped for at least the rest of the day. 

Shelbi and I were discouraged. That evening, we had grandma watch Elliott while we went to dinner and plotted Plan B. If we couldn't get on a flight the next day, we weren't going to spend all of my vacation time figuring out which Seattle's Best coffee shop made the best mochas in the airport. We thought about driving to Chicago, which would have been six days of solid driving and only two or three actually spent in Chicago. We thought about staying close to home and doing a few day trips. We thought about Seattle but had no place to stay. Eventually we decided that we would make a trip to California, spending a day in San Francisco and another in San Diego with the bulk of our time being spent with my brother and his wife.

With that plan in mind, we got up at 3:30 the next morning, headed back to the airport and, after making our way to the ticket counter, encountered another surly employee. But, this time, I was happy to see her. She, very blatantly, told us that there was a 0% chance of us catching a flight that day. She pointed to the flashing red lettering on the computer screen that described our stanby chances as "very risky". The only way it could have been less encouraging is if it also had a little skull and crossbones icon next to it. But that was the best thing that could have happened (aside from actually making the flight). We held onto our bags, didn't have to go through security and I could quickly call my mother and ask her to turn around. Plus Elliott got to ride the luggage carousels which are empty at 4 a.m. 

We got home, took quick naps, and then promptly threw all of our bags into my car to start our drive to California.

Posted by Matthew Sherman at 8/20/2010 9:25 PM
Categories: uncategorized

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