Everyone, at least once in their lives, should spend a day stranded in a major metropolitan airport.
Not much more than a week ago, operations at Detroit Metropolitan Airport ground to a halt when a blizzard struck.
Thousands of people were stuck. No one was going anywhere in that place where people are supposed to be going somewhere.
It was amazing how well everyone behaved. No shouting. No arguing. Except for the random squalling infant, people were peaceful. And they took direction well.
A tip for those in a similar situation: Think first before recovering your checked bags if you haven’t yet arrived at your final destination. If the bags are enroute, let them be. Consider the concept of a production line: Once the product (your suitcase) is pulled out of that flow, you will become responsible for it and, given the fact that you have no transportation at that point, it’s best to travel light.
I didn’t understand that concept until I spoke with a wise, older woman named Gale who explained that my one suitcase was amid 12,000 other bags. Not only would it be tough to locate, if I did and I reclaimed it, it would complicate matters immensely for me. I would have to lug that thing with me everywhere. And, at that time, I didn’t have a real good idea exactly where everywhere was.
Good point.
So what about boots, coat, toothbrush, I asked. Gail silently handed me a small cloth bag, courtesy of the airline. Inside, I found a cheap toothbrush and some dried-out non-fluoridated toothpaste.
I had just gone from no travel gear to the ability to brush my teeth. Circumstances had greatly improved.
I gave it one last-ditch effort to see if there was another way to get back home — or at least some way to stay at the airport and catch the earliest flight out the next morning, but had no luck.
So how to escape that benighted place and get some rest to return the next day to battle for a place on a plane?
Now, there, I had a great advantage: My son lives in Detroit. I texted him and he responded by driving through the horrible storm to my rescue and, by 11:32 p.m., we were sitting in the dining room in the old house where he lives, waiting for the tea kettle to boil.
What a relief, I thought.
Suddenly, he looked up at the ceiling. “What was that?” he asked.
The lights flickered. Then — no, please, no — the power went out. We were among the 212,000 in the Detroit metro area without power. It never came back on while I was there.
At least it was better than a cold, hard floor at the airport.
Early the following day, the sun made its emphatic presence known, causing big chunks of ice-covered snow to fall from tree branches and slide off roofs. After sleeping in clothes, sans winter coat and boots, gingerly stepping though knee-high drifts and swiftly melting clots of snow dotted with ice chunks, it was back to the airport. And lines of people. Nothing but lines that never seemed to move.
An older woman — I wish I had found out her name, because I would have sent a glowing tribute about how helpful she was — walked along the queue, asking individuals why they were in that line. She was good at interviewing; she’d probably do well as a reporter.
One poor man was headed for San Francisco. That was his third line of the day. He kept finding out he was in the wrong line. The woman asked a few more questions and found out that San Francisco was not his final destination. He was headed to Canada.
“You’re in the wrong line,” she said as his face fell. “That’s an international flight. You need to be over there,” she said, pointing to an area across the space that was about the size of a football field.
Then she looked at me. Where was I going? Traverse City, I replied, but I was hoping to catch an earlier flight. She took me to a kiosk and tapped the screen. A few quick taps and she printed a boarding pass for the evening flight.
“This will get you through security,” she said, handing me the printed pass and adding sternly, “Once you get through, you can make arrangements for an earlier flight.”
I thanked her profusely and went off to get in another line.
Now I had to get through security. I got through. I caught an earlier flight.
What a relief it was to return home.
And what I observed of my fellow Americans that day was, frankly, pretty impressive. Often, all we notice is the worst miscreant among us. We tend to focus on the badly behaved.
Yet, here, in these difficult circumstances, people were helping each other. They were courteous and patient.
There were no miscreants, just stranded travelers trying to find their way home.
These people, they were all different, but they had this experience in common and, somehow, it served to bring them together.
That’s why I say everyone, at least once in their lives, should spend a long day stranded in a major metropolitan airport.
It may not be great for the body, but it sure is good for the soul.