I don’t write a lot of diaries. I much prefer to lurk and then at times chime in with some occasional quip, hoping not to get flogged by others who can think more quickly than me and argue better. I’ve also endured a lot of the roxsux diaries, sometimes with disdain and sometimes with amusement and I’ve ignored quite a lot as well. As the primaries are more in the rear view mirror and the general election comes more into focus, it’s been nice to see a lot less of the sniping going back and forth between the two democratic camps. But then I clicked on this diary and I was reminded of the time my wife and I, well she wasn’t my wife at the time, were overbooked on a flight to Hawaii...
I’m going back about 34 years now, when my wife and I both used to look good in bathing suits. We had scrounged up enough money to go on a vacation together to Hawaii. We were so excited to spend a romantic 10 days together. She had already been there. She was on a stop over from Australia and ended up “stranded” in the airport in Oahu. She managed to survive by convincing customs agents to give her and fellow stranded travelers, the confiscated foodstuffs of passengers who were bringing in things that were on the nofly list. Anyhow, that’s another story and I digress. As mentioned we were both really excited to be going off to Hawaii together. As anyone who has had the luxury of being able to save for a vacation knows, there is a time of anticipation and buildup. When the day finally arrives you get your bags and off you go to the airport for your flight to paradise. What could go wrong. In those days travelling was easy. But on this particular occasion, our flight was overbooked. When we went to check in, we were told that there were no seats available. How could this be? We had tickets. We were told that another airline was going to absorb as many bumped passengers as possible, but we would have to make a run to the new terminal if we had any chance of getting on that airline’s next flight which was leaving in like 45 minutes. So my wife and I, upon hearing the bad news and facing the reality that the vacation we had saved for and anticipated for such a long time may not happen, ran. I had the bags, so I couldn’t go as fast and my wife, who isn’t very athletic sprinted to the terminal in order to get our names on a list. She surprised me and to this day, I’ve never seen her run so fast. She was only beaten out by a young lad who had a skateboard and a backpack. When we got to the new terminal, there were already several people who were trying to get their names on the list. A lot of angry passengers who were arguing with each other about this and that, I couldn’t even remember what a lot of the arguing was about, but it was mostly about who got in line first and all of the injustice of the various overbooked flights. We just wanted to get on the list and get on the flight. We did get on the list. I don’t remember what our number was. When it was time to board, they took the passengers who were already confirmed on the flight and then the wait listed passengers. We weren’t sure what our number was, just that as they began calling the wait listed customers, more arguments ensued about this person being in line before that person. It got pretty ugly. We did manage to get on the flight and were seated amongst many of the passengers that had been fighting to get a seat. All I could think of while I was buckling my seat belt, was that I was so happy to be on the flight and we were going to Hawaii, even though it was an hour later than expected. But, despite the fact that those of us that were on the list, ended up on the flight, there were still arguments going back and forth from several of the passengers over who was in line first and the lousy airline that overbooked the flight etc. It got to the point where I raised my voice and said to everybody arguing, “hey, we’re all going to Hawaii. Will you all just relax already.” And then a funny thing happened. It got very quiet and the plane took off and we were all on the plane together, getting ready for a great adventure. So does it really matter if Bernie said he’d vote for Hillary, but didn’t actually use the word endorse? We’re all going Philly together, and then we’re going to elect the first woman as president of the United States and we’re going to get the vote out to win back the House and the Senate. So relax and enjoy the ride.