Jackie Wells-Fauth
All right, you will have to endure one more comment (or article) about my recent excursion and then I promise to be done. I would be remiss if I did not mention that as big an adventure as eating is on a vacation, motels and airports can be just as exciting.
First, a word to the airline design people: Perhaps, as you design upcoming airplane seats, you might try not to make them the consistency of the wooden benches in the park. All that’s missing is the slats! It wouldn’t be so bad, but while I am taxiing out on the runway, squashed in between two other people, sitting on a hard plastic bleacher, the last thing I want to hear is, “We will be delayed for one half hour due to weather.” When they said that, I wanted to holler, “Let’s go now anyway! Take the chance! Anything to get me off of this ceramic tile I’m sitting on!”
Beyond that is always the issue of baggage. Can you take a roller bag, or must it be a back-pack only? In order to fit everything in a backpack, I would have to go without clothes. There are two things wrong with this: 1) The world isn’t ready for that and 2) The amount of sunscreen I would need would bankrupt me.
In addition to all the other issues surrounding baggage on a trip, I seem to be a bit of a security risk. On the last two trips where we have taken baggage through the passenger check-in, we have been flagged. Both times, it was because we had a tube of toothpaste that exceeded limitations. You’d think we’d learn, but no, we would rather become the Bonnie and Clyde of the Colgate Smugglers’ Club. In addition, I have been tagged for having too many keys (they thought it was knives) and having too many souvenir magnets. The security clerk dug them out of the bag and stood there, holding a whole wad of refrigerator magnets for places like St. Augustine’s Pirate Cove and Savannah’s Dolphin Watch. He looked at me, I giggled nervously and said, “I like magnets.” He had just dug through used tissues and dirty underwear to find them. He was not impressed.
I especially like the musical chairs that airlines play with passengers. I suppose they figure, “Hey, we got them here at 4:30 am, made them strip down and go through an x-ray machine, let’s see what else we can get them to do.”
On our return trip this time, we were up and on the way to the airport at 5:30. By 7:05, when the plane was supposed to depart, we had been informed that we would be delayed for an hour and a half for what they termed “a security and maintenance sweep of the plane.” This rather unnerving situation lasted for about an hour and then they changed our gate number…it was a big airport; we went a long way, complete with train rides. When we were not quite at the new gate number, they sent us another message: Just kidding; you are to return to the first gate and a different plane. By the time we took off, four hours late, we were tired, sweaty and in a bad mood to endure the 8-hour layover we had in Denver. By the time we finally landed in Minneapolis, even the rats had given up and gone home.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention our hotel rooms. We had some very good ones and others where a good spray of disinfectant wall-to-wall would have been a good idea. My favorite, however, was in Atlanta itself. After realizing that we had been put in a handicapped room when we had not requested one, we set ourselves to enjoy the very fine atmosphere.
That is, until we saw the READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS notice on the back of the door. It gave specific, explicit instructions on what you should do if the hotel was on fire. Included were instructions for feeling the door and for putting wet towels around the cracks to alleviate smoke and of course, the standard—Do not use the elevators. (We were on the fourth floor.) Two things were written in capitals and bolded: DO NOT GIVE UP; WE WILL GET YOU OUT and ABOVE ALL THINGS, DO NOT JUMP.
I know most hotels have these instructions because they must. However, after reading this unsettling notice, I lay down for the night. About 12:30 am, the smoke alarm went off and because we were in a handicapped room, we were also treated to wild, flashing red and white lights.
The alarm was in error, but I did not sleep the rest of that night. I kept smelling smoke and if I drifted off to sleep, I dreamed that General Sherman was marching back to Atlanta, but this time, he was only going to burn down the hotel where I was staying!
Time to leave “the land of cotton!”
dropsinthewell 