The Definite Article

The trip itself was eventful: interesting. In the same way that the ancient Chinese used the curse "May you live in interesting times."

Continental Airlines recently began tempting passengers with a quick journey between Edinburgh and Newark, two destinations as unlike one another in character as Ulaan Baatar and Paris. Newark is a filthy hell-hole. Newark Airport is designed to confound and torment travellers: absent of informative signs, staffed with churls and teeming with New Jersey natives. The train between terminals costs five dollars; there are no busses and you cannot walk between them. The trains have only token seats, rude benches of white polycarbonate. The benches themselves are perforated, in a vain attempt to alleviate the sweat that instantly forms when the humid backsides of weary travellers trap the fetid New Jersey air against hard plastic. Skolaski Highway seems like a bargain by comparison.

I say that Continental began tempting passengers with this direct flight because they failed to deliver on both the outbound and inbound journeys.

When I purchased the ticket, the reservation agent told me to get there three hours in advance. She was friendly and charming and English - in an unusual customer service inversion, I was to discover that the Brits treated me far better than their American counterparts would. But three hours? If I really took three hours out of my day, it would have been faster for me to have flown a cheaper flight that involved a short layover in London or Paris or Amsterdam.

Also, the flight was at 1000. Turnhouse Airport is an international airport, but only barely. It's small, to say the least. If I was to show up at 0700, I'd need to call ahead the night before so they could leave the key under the mat for me. It's that kind of place.

Nevertheless, I arrived nearly two hours early; having flown from EDI - Turnhouse many times before, this seemed a bit excessive.

I picked up my tickets and headed for check-in. In the check-in line, there was a new feature: American style fascisti demanding to see our papers. I handed over my passport to a short, plump, boorish woman with bucked teeth and poorly, closely cropped hair.

"Where do you live, Mr. Dornbrook?" She asked, acridly.

"Here." I said.

"In the airport?" She asked. I bit my tongue.

"No. In a flat." I replied.

"Riiiiiiight. Sure you do. I don't suppose you'd happen to have a gas or electric bill addressed to you here, do you?" She queried acidly, supercilliousness further marring her unattractive face.

"I didn't plan on paying my bills here." I said, unsure whether I pitied more her for the many lonely nights she must spend or the drunken fools who punctuated that loneliness. I hoped they were few, out of malice towards her and sympathy for all men.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Dornbrook." She started, sounding distinctly un-sorry, "I'm going to have to ask you to step out of the line."

I stood out of the line for a good hour while she took my passport and conferred with her simian cohorts, dressed in the same unfashionable, blue polyesther blazers. Finally, she returned with a gleam in her eye.

"Mr. Dornbrook, can you tell me when your visa expires?" She asked.

"Some time next year, I'd guess. March maybe." I answered.

"That's incorrect, Mr. Dornbrook. Your visa expired in February. Please come with me."

I was angry. My visa was issued in February - it could not have expired the day it was issued.

"Let me have my passport back." I said. "Show me where my visa has expired."

She handed me my passport and pointed to the valid from date. It had 'valid from' printed next to it.

"That's the valid from date." I said. I pointed to the 'valid until' date, Feb. 12, 2009. "This visa doesn't expire for five years."

She stared at the passport then at me. I could only guess at what dim ember of intellect might be glowing in the vapid depths of those blank eyes.

"Oh." She said. "Get back in line."

Not even an apology!

And what should have been the denouement: as I stepped back into line, they pulled a stretch barrier across my path. The flight was overbooked and the seats were now full.

I blinked. A confederacy of dunces was arrayed against me. Not only had an illiterate ape of a woman attempted to have me deported, but Contintental had overbooked the flight. Fuck the complexities of tensor analysis or quantum physics, these morons couldn't count.

How dumb can these people be? I asked myself, in a question that should have been rhetorical but later proved probing.

I dutifully stood in line so that Emma and Emma, the Continental ticket clerks, could tell me that the only way I was getting to the U.S. was on the same overbooked Continental flight the next day.

The next day I showed up three hours early. There had been fifteen people bumped from the previous days flight (fifteen people overbooked!). I still almost didn't get a seat. As I walked up to the check-in desk, they pulled the fabric belt across the passengers behind me and the same apologetic man that had informed me of my ill luck yesterday stepped forward to inform them of theirs. The day before, I had been the first to not make the flight; today, I was the last to make it.

As I was handed my boarding card, I overheard two Continental agents talking behind the desk.

"Was anyone willing to give up their seat?" One asked.

"Just one, Mrs. McClusky. She gave up seat 14C." Came the answer.

I glanced down at my ticket. 14C. I handed my baggage over and rushed over to Emma and Emma to tell them to thank Mrs. McClusky for me - and there she stood! She looked far too young to be a Mrs. I thanked her profusely and told her of the previous days travails, the upcoming wedding, my role in it as a groomsman and the necessity of making todays flight. Her face brightened and I felt better, too.

Even with the lift from getting to thank my benefactor, I still felt as though it was the worst travel experience of my life. I was to be proven wrong.