Written at 5 p.m. Monday.
Nothing much happens in airports. I know how everyone says how so much happens there, but these people have places to go. They confuse their sense of motion with their sense of place. When you have nowhere to go, you realize the airport has the same problem.
I have been in the Miami International Airport for 10 hours, quickly closing on 11. After not embarking on three earlier flights, I am currently waiting to not embark on another. There is snow in Washington, and there are too many people looking to go there. I am one of them, only with worse luck in taxis.
Super Yellow Taxi #1221 was supposed to arrive at the Silver Sands Beach Resort (motel) at 5 this morning. It did not. Calls after 10 and 20 minutes proved the dispatcher to be an optimist but also incompetent. After the seocnd call, I tried a second taxi service, one local to Key Biscayne. That dispatcher expected a cab to arrive within 5-10 minutes. After 20, the cab appeared. The dispatcher was the driver. We took off for the airport and did not pass a Yellow Cab speeding in the opposite direction.
As implied several sentences ago, the trip did not get better. The taxi driver got me to the airport a few minutes after 6, and by the time I got to an American Airlines e-ticket machine, the 45-minute no-fly rule had come into affect. The bag in my hand needed checking, and that meant no 6:52 flight. Said the e-ticket worker, angry before sunrise, "You're not going."
She put me standby on the 9:30 flight, and the 9:30 passed me to the 11:30. Four seats out of luck there, I got bumped to the 5:30 flight. The snow had begun falling mid-morning in Washington, and the 1:30 and 3:40 were canceled. From terminal to terminal, I carried my laptop and two plastic buckets. The buckets were full and didn't fit into my checked duffel. They were souvenirs from the weekend's wedding — one bucket for me, the other for Roommate Mark. Throughout the day at the airport, I was the only person I saw carrying buckets.
I finished reading the rest of my magazines — cover to cover — and the day's New York Times. The sports agate disappointed, but I read every damn inch. There was also one trip to the gift store and one failed attempt to find a business center. The white courtesy phone told me that the airport's only such facility was on the 7th floor of the attached hotel. So, no e-mail or Internet. Only newspapers and buckets. I consumed a regular size bag of M&Ms, a carton of orange juice, a personal pan pizza, breadsticks, and a cup of orange juice. I figured the juice would be peaceful, but I also hoped for some sort of truce with the state. If I bought its product, it might let me go.
It is now 5 in the evening, and the sun is setting. I don't know this for sure as the weather's been cloudy since dawn. But I just have a feeling.
Of course, I didn't make that flight.
I bought another bag of M&Ms and a New Yorker I knew was already waiting for me at home. Along with that second trip to the gift store, there was also a failed attempt to find an electrical outlet. I didn't find one in the entire Terminal D, on any wall or floor paneling, next to a gate or in the main walkway. An airline worker at last volunteered the backside of her gate podium. The podiums turned out to hide a dozen outlets each, all unused.
After 14 hours at the airport, I got onto the 8 p.m. flight, American's last of the day to Washington. I bought beer from the drink cart to celebrate.
