The problem with planning my itinerary across a swaying plank bridge, step-by-step, is that when we left out a step, I fell through that bridge and into the chasm.
 |
| Flying into Orange County Airport |
Wait! Are you really driving off? I mean, it’s not as though I didn’t know this moment was coming, but yikes! Talk about caught in the headlights…
Whereas Dee and I had gone over my steps back to Santa Rosa twice together, I had also made more solo flights inside my cauliflower brain than I could keep track of. Every one of those rehearsals committed the identical sin of omission: how to escape from Parking Lot A, to the freedom of The 101.
Dee had parked the car so it was the closest to the walkway coming from the terminal. I knew right where the car was and right where the exit was; I was the Pro from Dover on a routine mission. After all, each step of the way from SoCal had proceeded according to plan, and not even the delay in the departure time (about an hour), had fazed me one iota.
Delay? Say What? Delay!? Are we talking hours or days? Should I pitch a tent?
Even having the big policeman confiscate my backpack, while going through Security, and telling me to “meet him over there…” indicating the ominous regions out of view of the others, did not bother me. There was nothing in my backpack that could possibly have led to trouble.
I must have said “My bad” to that nice policeman three times. How do I know he was nice? Because he did not yell at me for being a pain in his ass. I guess a plastic water bottle could just have easily been a Molotov cocktail. Who even remembered it was there?
I was almost the first on the plane and almost the first off, and all it cost me was an extra thirty bones. I thought about boarding last and debarking first, but I didn’t figure it mattered if I read John Grisham in the waiting room or on the plane. Everyone was masked and remaining socially distant. 
Walking along the berm on Wednesday.
As George Carlin put it, I could sit in the waiting room, or wait in the sitting room.
Boarding the plane first meant I could dig into my Subway sandwich, acquired while waiting from the shop within eyesight of Alaska Airlines Terminal. I had waited until there were no patrons to be seen, put my backpack on, left my suitcase within eyesight and made a beeline.
Can’t wait for the flight attendant to bring the snack tray around while I’m munching half of a footlong. I could use a bag of peanuts to go with this.
Dude just called me Mark! Gawd, I love First Class…
I ate half my sandwich on the plane and half just before debarking the car (sorry) for Raley’s, to grab some much needed provisions. But first I needed to exit Lot A. And wouldn’t you know it? The instant I pulled up to the gate, where I still might have had a chance, a sleek, black sedan pulled up behind me, right behind me.
Then another vehicle pulled up behind Sleek, Black Sedan and the rest is a blur. That SOMETHING needed to happen, I knew with a certainty. The iron bar across my path was not going to open simply by my saying, “Open Sesame.”
Oh, Fudge Ripple! [or something like that]. The charge card! I use the charge card! I know THAT much. I have it right here. Now what? I Know! I’ll just stick the charge card in one of those slots on the bar-raiser-thing, and the bar-raiser-thing will cosmically recognize that I am who I am and that I have been here-nooooooooooooooooooooo-wrong hole! Wrong Hole!
Something was not right and if it’s not right-it’s gotta be wrong.
Profusely passing on my apologies through vague but expressive hand gestures, I managed to maneuver Dee's new Honda out from between the gate and the sleek, black car, without damaging either. I appealed to the throng of waiting cars, that even though this was my doing, they should not hold me responsible, for I was a lost soul. There were now five cars in the line, with thousands more waiting to join them. OK, you got me. The thousands of cars waiting were only inside my head.
Why hadn’t I just sat in my parking space before starting the engine, and done nothing for another minute or two?
By this time the woman who was driving the sleek, black sedan had made a call to the terminal, and alerted the powers that be that there was an issue in Parking Lot A. Within a minute a knight in full regalia, galloped on a white stallion from out of the terminal, and high-tailed it out to the bar-raising-thingie of Parking Lot A.
Once there, he jumped out of his golf cart and extracted my just-acquired-stimulus card from the devious device. The throng of waiting vehicles from Parking Lot A was then able to exit, stage left.
Still spinning myself, I awaited as the attendant then hastened over to me and inquired, “Do you have the ticket that you got when you first parked here-how many days ago was that?” “Six days,” I said.
Ticket? Oh, yeah, duh. The Ticket. Where was that dude?
“There it is,” he added, pointing to the center console, alongside my right thigh, right where Dee had placed it. “You just need to insert that where you had the charge card.” He made it sound so simple even I could follow his directions.
“Don’t worry,” he assured me, and I really did want to believe him, “it happens all the time.”
Seriously? I had wanted to say, but held my tongue. I figured it was better to say nothing and have him think me an idiot, than to open my mouth and prove him correct.
Next: Why was I In SoCal? And who is Dee?
No comments:
Post a Comment