"Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!"
-White Rabbit, Alice in Wonderland
I wake up determined to finish reading the book before I leave. As delighted as I am by the notion of stealing a book titled "The Book Thief" I have no desire to lug 488 of already read pages back to Indonesia with me and the idea of desecrating a book by tearing it up is too evil to contemplate. So I read another eight pages before I shower, deciding I can finish the rest over a lingering breakfast.
After showering, I pull out my plane ticket to double check it and move it to my day bag before I commence packing. I triple check the time as the horror settles in and my stomach dives to my toes. My flight leaves at 9:30, not 1:30. It is now 8:15.
I slam, cram, punch and throw all my belongings into my pack. I make a dash for the reception desk leaving the unfinished, and now forgotten, book behind. The girl there calls me a cab. "But," she warns, "it usually takes 20 minutes to get here." Plus another 20 to the airport. According to my ticket check-in counters for international flights close forty minutes prior to take off. I might still make it.
A cab driver arrives ten minutes later but it's for the Irish couple. They tell me I should take it. I thank them too profusely and practically run to the cab. So far, time is on my side.
"You hurry?" My cab driver asks.
"Yes, yes." I answer. "Flight at 9:30," I add, hoping to impress upon him the urgency of the situation. He smiles and nods, seeming to understand.
We are still winding our way down the country road to the main highway when he pulls over to answer his cell phone. While I applaud his safety first work ethic, I am fairly certain I am about to die of impatience. When he finally hangs up the phone after two infinite minutes he turns to me and smiles.
"We wait here for my friend."
"No!" I practically yell. "No waiting! Late! Late for plane!" Here I agitatedly make the universal gesture for plane by spreading my arms out and tilting side to side.
"Yes," he smiles broadly, "you go plane. Friend come, then go."
"No, no, no. No friend. Go NOW!"
His smile vanishes. "Ok, ok," his tone implying I am completely ba, but he puts the car in gear and begins to drive 20 km/h down the empty road. I sit in the back going quietly out of my mind. Ten minutes later another car approaches us driving in the opposite direction and both cars stop in the middle of the road.
My cab driver has a lively conversation with his friend while I tap my foot loudly, counting down the seconds to all being lost. By the time they say goodbye, what should have been a twenty minute cab ride to the airport has turned into at least a half an hour. I am now solely at the mercy of a miracle.
When we finally arrive at the airport the cab driver lets me out at the wrong terminal. Fortunately it's a small airport but I still have to run two football fields and negotiate an escalator blocked by travelers and their seemingly endless luggage.
When I reach the terminal, I scan the departure board which says my check in is at counter 6. Looking around I see a counter 5 and a counter 7. There is no 6. The screen above counter 7 says "Singapore" so I join the line comprised entirely of Russian nationals. Odd, I think, I seem to be flying home on a charter.
I make note of the sign politely requesting all passengers carrying automatic weapons and durian fruit advise staff at check-in. I try not to dwell on the fact that they've specified "automatic" weapons, as though handguns are somehow less lethal. I am comforted to know, however, that they have classified durian fruit in the same risk potential category as deadly weapons.
Durian is the world's most repugnant fruit. As hideous as it is to behold, it's even more revolting to smell. And you will smell it, usually long before you see it. It is the rotting stench of every disgusting smell in the world combined into one pungently noxious repellent fruit; year old unlaundered gym socks, soiled diapers, dead fish, formaldehyde and day old vomit all emanating from a giant orangey green ball with warty spines. Curiously, the farther away from the epicenter of emission the stronger the odor.
The eighth wonder of the world is that someone in human history thought "Gee, I bet that would be tasty". And Asians themselves are divided on whether it is or not. Ask anyone here if they like it and you will get only one of two responses: "I LOVE durian," said with a beaming grin, stomach rub and smacking of lips, or "AAAUUGH, dis-gusting," said with a horrified face, a stomach clutch and pinching of the nose. Thus, it's categorization as a deadly weapon.
"Lava chutzchny avana buschka?" Asks the square headed man in front of me.
I shrug my shoulders and shake my head. He looks surprised but turns back to face the front.
A few minutes later a blond teenage boy asks me, "Vladama itschky potta noschkev?"
"Nyet?" I ask in answer. He walks away.
It's 9:15 when I finally make it to the counter, but, judging by the thirty other passengers still in line, I feel no need to panic and actually feel a little glad I didn't arrive on time since we're obviously going to be delayed.
"This is not us," the girl behind the counter smiles as she hands me back my documents.
"What?!?!" I am stunned.
"No. Other company," she says pointing to the empty counter beside her. "Next," she says waving to the person behind me.
I stand bewildered under the TV screen she's pointed to which now reads "Air Asia". I wait until the girl at the next counter has finished checking in the person behind me, then ask as politely as possible, "Does Air Asia have a ticket counter here?"
"Yes," she smiles. "You are there."
Just then another girl walks behind the desk. I hand her my documents.
"Sorry. Too late. We are closed."
I beg, I plead, I am ashamed to say I come dangerously close to a whine.
"I will call and see. Wait yes? Probably no good but we see."
When she hangs up the phone she tells me they will hold the flight for ten minutes.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you," I say, taking my boarding pass. "Uh, which way do I go."
She sighs. "Up."
I run back up the stairs, down a long hallway, pulling my day bag over my head as I go and when I arrive at the security checkpoint, I toss my bag into the grey bin without stopping. I swoop in on the other side, grab the strap of my bag and continue
I scan and find a line with a blond white girl and her boyfriend at the front of the line.
"Excuse me? I'm so sorry to ask this, but they're holding a plane for me, can I possibly go ahead of you?"
"Sure," she shrugs.
It feels like an eternity passes while I wait for the customs officer to find a blank page and stamp my passport, but once I'm through, I'm off at a jog again to the final security screening. From ten feet away I see the line is being held up by two women trying to sort their belongings out. With what feels like Olympic grace I toss my bag which flies through the air with a boomerang curve around one of the ladies. I don't stop, and as I continue running through the metal detector I can see my bag in my periphery, land squarely on the conveyor belt. When I am safely on the other side I have to wait for it to come down the chute.
Only when I have slung the strap across my body do I notice the counter girl waiting for me. She shakes her head at me.
"Stamp," she says, pointing back towards customs.
"I have," I say, a little breathlessly.
She shakes her head again, thinking I've not understood and gestures that she wants to see my passport. I hand it to her and she flips it open. When she finds the page her eyebrows rise, the corners of her mouth draw downwards and, looking at me, she nods her head approvingly. She is impressed. This may be the closest I ever come to winning a medal for a race.
She walks me over to the gate, says something to the staff who are just opening it for boarding, and they size me up admiringly. For the first, and probably only, time in my life I am the first passenger to board the plane.
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