Socially Promoted Through the School of Life

Experience, as someone with either sadistic or masochistic inclinations (to have both would certainly guarantee one a very “self-fulfilling,” if short, life) once said, is the best teacher, and certainly, that is how I, on many occasions during my 60-year enrollment as a student of life, have learned things.

My most recent, salient instance of enlightenment came at the beginning of our annual New York City trip last November.

Perhaps some, or possibly most, of your readers already possess the knowledge of what an express flight is, but my wife, Barbara, and I had no knowledge of it, experientially or otherwise. All we know was that we had booked a direct flight from Charleston to “The Big Apple,” and we were euphoric that we would not be changing planes in Charlotte or Atlanta, the latter where I’m convinced the airport employees make wagers on whether the weakest of the passenger herd will be able to make it through their fiendishly conceived obstacle course at all, much less in time to catch their flights.

While checking in at the Charleston Airport, I had asked the airline clerk whether our 4 pieces of luggage were small enough to be carried on, and he had responded affirmatively. This sounded great to us. No hassle with waiting at the baggage claim carousel or worrying about it being lost, as happened a year ago. Everything was working out perfectly so far. And that in itself should have been a tip-off, but maybe, I thought to myself, God is making a deal with me. He’ll oblige me with one brief, shining moment of perfection, if I lighten up on Goose Creek and North Charleston in future articles. The plane would depart at 11 a.m. we’d be at LaGuardia by 1 p.m., at our nephew’s apartment by 1:45 p.m.; and out walking the teeming, colorful streets of the world’s greatest city by 2:15 p.m.

Of course, there is always a downside to these trips for me, anyway, since I don’t like to fly. Mainly, I hate the take-off and landing, and all that occurs in between. But despite these feelings, my spirits were still buoyed by the fact that I would be at our destination in 2 hours. And I concentrated on this goal, as we walked through the accordion-shaped tunnel that connects the terminal to the plane. We walked, as quickly as our luggage would allow, toward the end of the tunnel, and mentally prepared ourselves for the mandated cheeriness of the flight attendant / greeters who had, no doubt, already reached their optimal general public compatibility level several years ago.

But when we reached the other side of the tunnel, we were suddenly rendered speech and almost breakfast-less, at what we saw: There was no plane and there was light at the end of this tunnel, but we didn’t want it. What we did see was a long, steep flight of steps leading down to the tarmac, then about 100 yards away was a plane, and not a very impressive one, I might add. Although, thank God, it didn’t have propellers being wound by someone in World War I garb, it seemed scarily undersized (An analogy of 2 Toyota Camrys and a half a Tercel came to mind). Then, of course, there was the more immediate matter of negotiating the 1 foot wide stairway encumbered by our 300 pounds of luggage. Barbara, in fact, had to leave one of her piece at the top of the steps, while she carried the other down. Fortunately, a kindly male passenger took it for her, seeing that I couldn’t manage it along with the two I already had.

When we finally reached the tarmac, a place where I’ve never set foot before, and where I was all at once overcome with a desire to act out some 1940s war movie scene in which I would courageously but reluctantly leave a tearful Barbara, as I climbed into the cockpit of my Flying Tiger, perhaps never to be heard from again, we were approached by the baggage man, who told us that we would have to check in our luggage right then and there, there being room in the overhead compartment for only things like pocketbooks, or perhaps, I thought, a small plastic bomb or Anthrax vial, with my luck.

After a brief but heated discussion between Barbara and the baggage guy, over the fecklessness of his tagging system, we boarded “The Pride of Lilliputia Airlines” and were once more dumbfounded, this time by the incredibly cramped seating area: 2 seats on one side of the aisle and 1 on the other. I had heard the weather report for the day and there were 20 to 40 mph hour gusts forecasted. With an aircraft this puny, I thought, either we’ll be tossed about like balsa wood in a tornado or if the gusts are all southeasterly, maybe we’ll just get there 30 minutes early.

Once we got settled in and buckled up (God only knows how many thousands of lives have been saved by these miraculous devices when a zillion ton aircraft plunges into the Earth at 500mph), we actually took off without any difficulty, and I also felt more secure after having made my routine visual check of my fellow passengers to ascertain whether we had an overage of gravity-challenging lard-butts and found there were, indeed, none whatsoever.

I’m extremely pleased to announce that the flight was totally uneventful, and, in fact, maybe the gusts were pushing us, because we got to New York in 1 ½ hours.

Of course, when I say “uneventful,” I am not counting the usual petty but still aggravating idiosyncrasies of air travel that one simply takes in stride, the main one being the p.a. system. I can never understand what the captain is saying. It’s amazing that the airlines outfit their high tech, sophisticated flying machines with t same p.a. systems that the fast food restaurants use. Never do I hear what the pilots’ names are, and I usually only hear one or two words out of a sentence. It is out of terror, hoping not to hear broken-up sentences such as: “Land…Iraq…19 hours,” “Lunch box ticking,” “Mr. bin Laden…report…flight attendants’ station, “scared sh- -tless,” “Hands off my leg, you fairy,” “You’re kidding…you left…contact lenses at home too,” “Just exactly what is…death spiral anyway?” And one complete one: “Your celebrity guest pilots for the rest of the flight will be Robin Williams and a somewhat glassy-eyed Robert Downey, Jr.”

But, as I said, we reached NY in record time, plus we had a smooth flight, and both Barbara and I learned what an express flight is. Lastly, I have finally discovered—it took the flight back to accomplish it—that if you wear ear plugs, you will not be annoyed or terrorized by anything the pilot says.

And so I wait, with great alacrity, my next valuable lesson of life, which, for some reason, calls to mind that saying by Friedrich Nietzsche: “I sit at the gateway of fools and ask, ‘Who wisheth to deceive me?’”