When you have bronchitis and weakened lungs and severe sciatica in your back, you should be ninety eight years old and in a nursing home, not a weary traveler in her sixties who just wants to get home, who’d settle for a hot air balloon if it would get her back to Kansas.
They don’t call it a terminal for no reason.. walking to the gate felt like scaling Mount Everest in my weakened state.
We walked aimlessly and endlessly until we finally got to TSA screening, where I couldn’t stop thinking that the top of the pole on one of the gates had a chip in it, and the chip was a silhouette of none other than Donald Trump himself.
It was entertaining to eavesdrop on all the small talkers who recapped their drunkations
,while accusing me, with their red eyes, of having consumption.
After endless steps and wolfing down a tasteless meat patty that was purchased at Nathan’s, my only nourishment of the day which I had to eat with my fingers, we finally got to the gate where I could catch my breath and hopefully, a catnap.
I was about to doze off when Jim jostled me and orders me up at once: United Airlines texted him that we were being forced to change gates! That we’d have to take that mile long hike again! Go through TSA again. ( WTF?? Did someone think I purchased an AR15 at the freaking GIFT shop??)
There were signs everywhere warning us not to take our guns in our carry on luggage, assuming we had weapons in the first place, which is a fair assumption in Florida.
There were signs that warned us of of fine of $13,910 if we harassed or argued with any agent.
That was such a random number and such a subjective concept .. what constitutes harassment??
But I was wheezing and gasping and struggling, and nobody would help. We were under pressure to make it to the new gate in time while keeping me alive.
Do you remember that scene in “ Terms of Endearment “ when Shirley MacLaine was screaming to the nurses, “ give my daughter that shot!”???
Jim went all Aurora Greenway on all those heartless airport workers who refused to help us, even those who saw me struggle. A cart whizzed by, but instead of stopping to pick us up, it almost hit my heroic husband with such force that if he didn’t lunge into the arms of a sympathetic stranger, he would have been in traction.
“I’ll give you twenty dollars to borrow a chair”
He begs.
“that’s not my station but if you want to wait an hour or so we can fill out these forms and contact United..”
“Your driver almost hit me and my wife is sick!” my hero screamed to the guy when we finally reached the boarding gate.
“There is no need to be abusive sir,” says this asshole to my wonderful Jim, and before we were hit with that $13,910 fine, I soften the blow by saying he looked and sounded just like Paul McCartney , which he absolutely did, and he replies, “yeah.. I’m his brother.”
I think it actually WAS the Beatle, researching a possible movie role, because I could totally believe that Sir Paul is a total tool like that.
We had a smooth flight until landing, where the pilot seemed to prefer circling to actually getting us on the ground in Newark.
We finally landed at the furthest gate from baggage claim, but this time, I put my embarrassment aside and allowed my lungs to just chill as we were wheeled to baggage claim and were allowed to put the nightmare behind us.
I promise everyone, I’ll be fine. I’ve had bronchial infections like this before and I’ll start a course of antibiotics as soon as I contact my doctor first thing tomorrow.
I promise.
Because if I don’t get my Jewish Christmas ( a movie and Chinese food) I am going to track down that miserable person who made me this sick in the first place.
I’ll probably have to look no further than my own bathroom mirror.
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