I Emerge From Texas, Mostly Unscathed
A little behind the curve here. After fulfilling my social/business obligations in Houston, I drove my rental car to the airport. To be precise, the George HW Bush (ptui!!!) Airport. I was reminded that this was Texas when I refilled the tank at a Shell station, then had to drive over 10 miles between the airport entrance and the “Rental Car Return”. Signs kept appearing that said “Rental Car Return”, directing me to exit the 3-lane approach drive from the lane opposite to the one I was in, and then continuing for so long without additional instruction that I was ready to give up hope, then directing me to dive across three lanes and exit in another direction, etc. I was sure that when I finally arived somewhere that I could actually relinquish the vehicle, the tank would be half-empty and I would be confronted with the accusing glares of Thrifty employees who would not believe that I had spent $15 refilling their little Dodge Neon just 1/2 hour ago.
I had booked a late flight (8:45) because I thought we would be doing a plant tour after our elegant lunch, but it turned out that the day’s festivities were concluded after lunch, so I was WAY early for my scheduled flight. I had been upgraded to first class on my scheduled flight, but I saw that there was an earlier flight at 5:30, so I waitlisted for it at the advice of a gate agent, who was convinced that the hurricane activity presaging Charlie would cause multiple delays and cancellations.
At the gate for the 5:30 flight, they announced that the flight was oversold and were asking for volunteers. For me, this translated into exchanging my first class seat for a middle seat in coach, if available. I hung around until they were almost finished boarding and, seeing no dearth of folks showing up, decided to keep my seat on the later flight.
So, instead of returning to Seattle and a houseful of my wife’s relatives 3 hours ahead of schedule, my elbows skinned from competing for armrest space, I returned to the Continental President’s Club, reconnected to their free broadband internet signal, poured a glass of free Chardonnay, and whiled away the time until my next flight composing enjoyments for you, Dear Reader, which I was able to upload just prior to packing up and running for my gate.
I boarded in due time, and found that my seat was occupied. A couple had been assigned seats in first class, but not together, and wondered if I would give up my customary aisle seat in trade for a window in a different row. No problem, I moved on to the exchanged seat and saw that I had to negotiate past a largish man with a leg brace in the aisle seat.
Once ensconced in my seat, I overheard my largish seatmate speaking hurriedly to someone he called “Brother Omar”, and noticed that he had a copy of the Koran open in his lap. He was a black man, not Arabic, and sounded as urbane as (and with an accent similar to) Bryant Gumbel. Still, the combination of the open Koran, the emphatic phone conversation and the brace, even at this remove from 9/11, set my teeth on edge a bit. I mean, I flew the Friday after 9/11, and have flown regularly since, so I long ago rationalized the minimal threat involved. I’m convinced that there will be another attack, but it won’t be a copycat crime. Still, I’ve read of instances where TSA, as anal as they are with tennis shoes and belt buckles and wine corkscrews, gives passes to folks with leg braces and other prosthetics because they don’t have specific guidelines for them.
I opened my current book (All The King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren) and read with my eyes, but kept my ears peeled for my seatmate’s cellphone conversation. Eventually he rang off the phone. After a bit he turned to me and asked me what I was reading. Bonus points in his column. I explained that it was a work of fiction very loosely based on the career of Louisiana governer Huey Long, that the language was sumptuous and, although it used the “N” word (for that is why I thought he asked - that he had espied it in the text). it had to be taken in the context of the time, etc,. Then he took a call from someone he was planning to meet up with when he landed, and the general humanity of what I discerned of him disarmed me about any Mad Muslim scenarios.
As the flight progressed, I considered for a bit, as you might at a church picnic, about the appropriateness of my ordering alcohol in the presence of a seatmate who obviously eschewed it. This quibble was exceedingly fleeting, however, and I encouraged the flow of Chardonnay refills that one becomes accustomed to in first class. My glass of infidel elixir cohabited the armrest for most of the flight with his copy of the Koran in a church-state armistice in our demilitarized airspace.
Later, as I opened my laptop (he already had his opened), he asked me a techinical question about how I had Windows XP configured, and I pondered how someone who was so obviously addicted to technological gadgets could so unreservedly espouse a faith that considered modernity in even its low-tech manifestations the enemy.
We landed safely, of course. The next terrorist orgy will not involve corpulent zealots with prostheses, seated next to more nimble seatmates bent on stopping them.
