Departures

[raven]

You know your life has taken a turn for the unpleasant when you've sitting a cold, dim domestic terminal, thinking to yourself that if you hear "I'll Be Home For Christmas", one more time, you are going to start crying.

ARGH. I am exhausted. I left New Hampshire late yesterday afternoon through thick, thick snow. I was advised that it would get less severe the further south I went, but no one seemed quite sure how far south. ("Tampa?" narahttbbs suggested, only half-ironically, and I think she was probably right.) After a few hours in a bus from Concord, most of which was spent staring at the beautiful, but very thick snow that was coming down horizontally by this point, I reached Boston expecting the weather to be better. It wasn't. The first thing I noticed was that my flight was delayed by an hour and a half, and the second thing was that the queue through security control was a hundred miles long. Eventually, I handed over my driving license in response to a demand for picture ID - my passport is somewhere at the bottom of my increasingly TARDIS-like bag - and the man stared at it, and then at me, for what felt like half an hour. (Much to the chagrin for the ninety-nine miles of queue behind me.)

Finally, he said, "When does this expire?"

I had spent most of the journey from Concord reading about the adventures of Mr. Spock, Vulcan, and thus felt the need to be strictly truthful in all things. 2057, I told him. After a long moment, he painstakingly wrote "2057" on my boarding pass and handed it back to me. I was somewhat baffled. Then, of course, they random-checked me and my belongings. Dear world in general but US Department of Homeland Security (bleurgh) in particular: it's not random when you check the same person five times. Why don't you just call it brown-person-checking, that would be more accurate and Mr. Spock would hate you less.

Having survived this, I noted with interest that my flight was three hours late. I sat in a corner and finished off Star Trek novel number one. (narahttbbs lent me a bagful before I left, which in retrospect was the best idea ever.) When I'd finished, I went to get a sandwich. Standing in front of the board in an almost silent terminal - every other night flight had departed - I noticed we were now five hours late and said, aloud, "Fuck, fuck, fuck."

Someone close at hand breathed, "Amen, amen, amen," and when I turned around she waved at me before disappearing into the distance.

That cheered me up for about five minutes, and by the time I'd got through Star Trek novel number two, the flight had been wiped from the departure boards as a lost cause. Apparently the incoming flight had been diverted to Hartford, Connecticut, and they weren't letting it leave, according to the astonishing incompetents that US Airways employs for customer service. It finally arrived at three - scheduled departure was 8.15 - and at twenty past four in the morning, I finished off the third book and the plane took off. (They let us board with the words, "Thank you for waiting", to punch-drunk hysterical laughter from all.)

But I got here. I got here at sunrise, only seven hours behind schedule. I have slept a little, I don't feel half bad. In fact, the only injury I seem to have sustained from the experience is a latent desire to get three cats and call them Kirk, Spock and McCoy, and I'm sure this will pass. I am glad to be here, where it's a positively balmy five degrees Celsius, and the BBC site insists on telling me that in world weather news, there is "record snow in December for parts of New England."

No kidding. But I did had a lovely time in New Hampshire, and it was worth it. I'm only here for a few days - I fly out again on Wednesday, and should be home on Thursday. I think it will be a nice Christmas.

Comments

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Seriously. Until the day I turn seventy, I am entitled to drive in the European Union.