I leave two hours before my flight
regardless of my proximity to the airport.
I don’t like fussing over the algebra to figure out the smartest time to leave,
and I definitely don’t enjoy suffering through you lot working the same old variables, either.
Y’know what variables are called when they’re always the same?
Controls.
The outcome is always, always,
“So, we’ll wanna leave about 2 hours before the flight,”
so, I just decided to always, always leave two hours before my flight
and be done with it forever.
LGA can be either 15 or 45 minutes from my apartment;
Security usually takes 5 minutes or 45 minutes.
(well, now I’m talking you through the same old variables… I have a point.)
Frequently, I can get from bed to gate in 25 minutes.
When that happens, I use the excess time to thank the airline gods for smiling upon me once again by raising a 9 oz pour of chardonnay,
ordered at one of the quartz-topped art deco or Wayfair-themed airport bars that line with the new LGA promenade.
This is, of course, after checking to make sure my gate, in fact, exists
“Yup. There it is.”
I state in my internal dad voice.
Then I fill up my Hydroflask bottle in one of the fancy water fountains.
It affirms that I saved the ocean from another 6 plastic water bottles.
Feeling Greta Thunberg boots, I strut over to join the other white ladies for some of that golden elixir. The suburban ambrosia. Our mom juice.
Kim from Connecticut, on the stool next to me, was on her way to her friend’s bachelorette party.
She told me, and the Gen-Z Chicagoan sitting next to me, it was in New Orleans! “Hurricanes!” she shouted. Referring to the drink.
Her friend was a 46-year-old bride.
“And it is only her first wedding. Can you believe it?”
She ordered a round of tequila shots.
“Whoa! No no no.” We protested. She confidently tried to Mean Girl us.
“Oh stop! It’s Patron for god’s sake.
I’ll even pay for them.”
Was there a world in which I would have to pay for that shot, Kim?
I did not take it. But the Gen-Z Chicagoan gave in. Kim took the remaining two.
I love cross-generation cooperation.
We laughed while Kim tried to get everyone at the Wayfair Bar & Grill to turn up with her. When I got up to catch my flight, no one felt the need to add each other on IG.
It felt like we were in an era from before society was ruined by social media — I miss the 90s. So refreshing.
I fly Southwest because I started collecting points with them in 2007,
but last year, I spent them all going to bachelorette parties and weddings.
Now I’m not sure I need to keep subjecting myself to the general admission style seating.
But I do like explaining Southwest’s procedures to confused Midwesterners
boarding the flight to MCI (Kansas City International Airport) with me.
“Your boarding number is 37, which is after 36,” I’ll say.
The relief of understanding washes over them. Then the realized simplicity of the situation grows behind their eyes. Embarrassment spills out:
“Geez Louis. I should have figured that out.”
Anyway, it is nice to feel helpful now and again.
Having purpose is such a rare gift in this life.
Also, I like not paying extra for decent legroom in the exit row.
I never adjust the seat belt when I sit down.
Loose or tight, it proves how skinny I am.
Also, and this is one of the few “bad member of society” things I allow myself, leave my carry-on in the middle seat. So everyone will think it’s taken and keep walking.
Once a cute boy, with great arms, boarded my plane with a chic leather weekender bag, so I knew he was a fell homo. (Is this the plot of Fellow Travelers?)
We made eye contact. Then I coyly looked out to the tarmac.
When I ventured for another peak, he mouthed, “Are you saving that seat?”
I happily said no and moved my bag from him.
We both were flying to Kansas for Christmas
and shared a four-hour layover in Minneapolis
that we spent drinking Presidente Margaritas® at Chili’s Too.
On our connecting flight, we swapped numbers across the row we had to ourselves,
and passed smirking glances to each other as we watched our separate in-flight movies like we were an elderly couple. He was 29 at the time and wouldn’t hug me in front of his dad when we said goodbye in MCI.
I check in on his biceps on Instagram every now and then.
We’ll always have Chili’s Too.
I can only sleep for the first 45 minutes of the flight.
It is a sweaty and fevered nap sequence,
orchestration provided by Adele’s 25.
(I recently learned Adele is a not uncommon airplane napping choice.)
Then I’m alert, sitting stoic and pensive in my seat,
not engaging in the three possible activities I prepared for myself
as a parent might prepare for traveling with their toddler.
Audiobook listening, writing my screenplay, or playlist creation.
I can’t even focus on Survivor,
which I learned that I could download the on Paramount+ app.
So I play this app where one pours different colored liquids into separate vials,
Or I stare out the window willing the last hour of the flight to speed up,
while holding in the chardonnay that has now filled my bladder.
But I think I do a good job keeping my anxiety self-contained.
One of the most romantic things someone has ever said to me was,
“We should travel together.
You learn so much about someone when you travel together.”
He did not want to take me on a romantic trip to a beach or Paris;
He was pondering the big relationship question: airport compatibility!
A tried and true measure of whether we could last the test of time. How miserable are you to be associated with in unnecessarily stressful, public situations?
Practicality really does make me swoon.
I know I perform wonderfully under unnecessary stress.
And I became giddy to move into the next stage of our relationship.
We broke up a week later.
Never to take that trip together.
When will I finally get to prove to a man that I’m a worthy travel companion?
When will be old enough to clap when the plane lands?
How early would I leave for the airport if I had Delta Lounge access?
Should I take a dirty pic in the lavatory mirror to get more Twitter followers?
Why do I assume everyone is enchanted by me in airports?
Are they awestruck by my successfully balancing a coffee in my fist with an overpacked carry-on slung in the crook of my cantilevered forearm?
Am I still compensating for a boyfriend who worried that I might be the type of sociopath who takes off their shoes on an airplane?
Or is it that both MCI and LGA are newly remodeled that gives me my main character syndrome?