The LOONNGGG Walk

It had been a looooonnng flight.  I was happy to finally make it to the hotel where I could get something to eat and go to bed.  So i sat down in the lounge of my hotel and ordered the Crab Cake sandwich. Just as Miguel the waiter brings my food,  this old lady in a United Retired Americans Foundation shirt comes up to my table. I thought she was going to ask if she could have the extra chair.

“Mind if I join you?” she asks.

Happy for the company, I responded with a smile, 

"As long as you don't mind me eating my crab cake in front of you.  Please, have a seat Miss Retired American."

She smiled politely, sat down and pulled out her I Pad. The last words I heard her say were "How’s the internet connection?" Must have been just fine because She didn't wait for an answer. Once she got connected, she disappeared behind her I Pad. Literally. She actually held it up to cover her face as she typed on it.

I thought at first she couldn't see very well. But then I tried to ask a couple questions. 

“So where are ya'll from?”    Nothing. 

“Pretty busy in here tonight huh?”  nothing.

Perhaps she was hard of seeing and hearing. It was a bizarre city-people thing I guessed.  Protection of Personal space. This is my Personal space.  You can’t see me... Im not here.... I don't hear you.

So I ate my Crab cake sandwich in silence and pretended to be interested in the 

NFL game on the TV. I paid Miguel, who must have assumed I was from Espana because he spoke to me in spanish every time he came to the table ,

and said goodnight to the Retired American hiding behind the I-pad. Nothing.

As i got on the elevator i held the door for a man who flat out refused to follow me in, as if his mother had once warned him about guitar toting, not yet retired american men who look like they could be from Espana.

Personal space...personal space.... If i get in that elevator with you, I will have no personal space and worse yet I have to ignore you.  In an elevator with two people its obvious to the two parties involved that both said parties are ignoring each other. We know its rude yet we still do it and because its so impersonal it feels uncomfortable. I don’t see you.  You’re invisible. Apparently this man would rather forgo that discomfort and elected not to get on the elevator.  

“You go ahead I uh have to uh wait.. here…for DING  the door closed and I rode

up to the 4^th floor by myself. I walked the long 75-room walk from the elevator at room 4001 to the very last room 4076 only to find the key card didn't work.

I almost laughed.  Almost. So I walked the long 75 rooms back to the elevator,  still carrying my guitar, was ignored by the couple waiting there, was ignored in the elevator ride down, walked past Miguel and the retired american who had united with a seemingly another retired american. Only this time the I pad was in her lap. Apparently, you can show your face to other retirees, but not to guitar toting, crab cake eating southern men talking to the waiter in spanish.

Once again, I got back into the line at the front desk and waited for my turn while a college kid in grey skinny jeans, Chuck Taylors and an American University hoodie tried to explain to the lady behind the counter, why he was justified in asking for a key to someone else's room.  Apparently, he had helped pay for these rooms and was therefore entitled to access them all whether it was his name on the room or not. I wanted to ask him if I could have a key to his room.  My logic was quite sound. Since I pay taxes, technically that means I pay his per diem that he gets for being a congressional intern for this, his senior semester at American University. So wouldn't I therefor, by his own logic, be entitled to accessing his room should I feel the need? But I refrained from my wise cracks.  I saw where that got me with old retired Americans and their I-Pads. I didn’t want to know what it would get me with a soon-to-be American U Graduate on his long journey to becoming yet another United Retired American who went to American.

Finally it was my turn to be “helped” as I took my place at the front desk and leaned in against the marble counter as if I was fixin to order from burger king.

Ananitta the African Still Working American with a thick island accent was polite.

How can I help you Mr Toma's?

"My room key doesn't work"

I do apologize Mr Toma's. I understand your room key does not work..

Oh no....if you’ve ever tried calling AOL tech support and talking to someone in India you know why I just said Oh No.  I’m fixing to get a typically caring-less scripted reply.

"I do apologize for that inconvenience. Thank you for your patience tonight"

I smiled at the thought of my patience.  I had shown very little of it today, starting with the car ride through 5 o’clock traffic to the airport back in Nashville. Then there was the internal self-victimization pity party I threw for myself because my confirmed-upgraded flight was cancelled and I was shuffled over to another airline as a sub-class displaced passenger because American Airlines farmed out its stranded passengers to US Air.

I'm thinking of starting a club called  The US/American Displaced Passengers. I’m going to make t-shirts and I will hold meetings in hotel lobby lounges.

I will collect dues but i do not really want anyone to come to my meetings. Because if they did, they would probably hide behind their I pads anyway.

 I was assigned a seat on the new flight in the rear of the plane next to the only bathroom of which the door works like a folding closet door.   You know the seat. The one at the very back that wont recline a nat’s hair even when the guy in front of you lounges into your lap like he’s at home in his Lazy Boy recliner oblivious to the person behind him and their personal space which he has obliterated with his tiranistic invasion of the reclining chair.  They gave me the last seat! You know the one. The seat where you actually rub shoulders with everyone entering and exiting the lavatory as they pretend they don’t see you there. Personal space.... Personal space... I do not you see you.  You are invisible…. Apparently the guy next to me didn't get the miss manners memo that eating in front of people is rude. He pulled out his Popeye’s chicken and biscuits and began scarfing them down like a character on Lost who just found a box of Popeyes chicken and biscuits on the beach but doesn’t want to share it so he runs and hides in the bushes to woof it down. Only there were no bushes to hide in at the back seat of a plane next to the lavatory. So instead he pretended to not see me….

 I kept telling myself,  “This isn’t that bad.  You've been through much worse when it comes to travel. At least you got a flight and weren't stranded. And after all you are flying though the air while sitting in a chair!  As my friend Louie CK says, " A few centuries ago you would have been a greek god!"  

91 mins later we defied the laws of gravity, astonished the nay-sayers and landed safely on the ground in the nations capitol. Only you couldn't see the nations capitol because DC was covered in the remnants of tropical depression Lee. Which in and of itself seems rather ironic since General Lee never did actually make it to DC. Perhaps he should have disguised his rebel army as United Retired Americans. I waited for the entire plane to exit only to find them outside again gaggled in the drizzle waiting for their luggage. I thought, depression was a good word for this weather. But there isn’t much tropical about it.  Dark Dreary and Cold.

One of my favorite parts of traveling is arriving at the airport and having someone there waiting for you. Its a nice feeling. It means someone cared

enough about you to make an effort to be there for you.  It reminds me of being a kid when I would visit my Dad for the summer. He would meet my sister 

and me at the airport with some silly sign. Then on the return home my mom would be there waiting with hugs and a  “Welcome Home!” Or as my waiter friend Miguel would say, “Bien Venidos!” So even now when I travel I still love it when someone comes to meet me at the airport. Even if its a stranger.  Because for me, no one stays a stranger for too long. Unless of course they are United as a Retired American who owns an I pad. I looked at my itinerary to see who was coming to meet me.  And under the Sub title TRANSPORTATION- Airport pick up it said.  TAXI

I’ve been traveling long enough to tell you that when someone delegates a taxi driver to be your welcoming committee it means a couple things.  One is that no one volunteered to come pick you up. Two, you weren’t important enough to the event planner to warrant a personal pick up.   I could be wrong but that’s what it feels like.  You should have seen the line of people waiting for cabs into DC. The last time I saw a line that long it was in that Allen Jackson video “Good Time”. Only this was not my idea of a good time. I have a video of it if you want to see it. The cab line. Not Allen Jackson.

“Thank you for your Patience Mr Tomas.” Repeats Anannata the lady behind the lobby desk.  

“Oh,  sorry I was jus thinking about the long day I’ve had and what it took to get me to this moment right here with you.  So this is easy.  All I had to do was walk about 75 rooms.  No patience required.”

Up till now she had been the typical polite hotel employee -formal yet disconnected enough not to really care. We all know that’s just the way it is and, we’ve all grown numb to it in the world of business travel. So we go through the motions and pretend we don’t notice that the curt professionalism is still just a way of keeping people at a distance.  She may as well of held an I pad up in front of her face.  

But just then something in the tone of her voice changed that brought me out of my personal space and into her world.  She was talking to me like a real person as if she actually cared that I had chosen her hotel. As if she really cared about  me as a person. 

"Well, I thank you.” She repeated.

“Your patience is a virtue and you must be very blessed."

I smiled and thought for a second who was really talking to me right then.

I heard my own voice saying the prayer I say daily, 

“Lord guide me in my responses to others so they will see you through me. Give me the wisdom to make the right choices. The strength to act on those choices and the Patience to see it through.”

“You know, Ananitta you are right.  I am quite blessed.” I thought for a moment and added, “But if I were you, I would think twice about asking God for patience.  He'll make you wait a loooong time"

She laughed whole heartedly with a smile brighter than an entire table of United Retired American T-shirts.  

“Yes! she agreed, He will make you wait wont he? Dats for sure.”

Ananitta comped my meal and handed me two bottles of water as a gift.

"For your looong walk Keni. For your long walk"