Tikkun Magazine, January/February 2008

Thanks for the Inconvenience 

by Barry Flicker

ON JUNE 25TH I LEFT SAN FRANCISCO AROUND NOON ON A FLIGHT BOUND for Raleigh-Durham, NC to conduct a training session for a corporate client the next morning. As we buckled ourselves in, I exchanged a few pleasantries with the guy sitting next to me. During the entire five and half hour flight to Washington, D.C., where I would make my connection for Raleigh, these were the only words that passed between us. I've never been good at small talk. Also, I think of flying as a respite from the bombardment of constant stimulation in the wider world. I assume others feel the same way. So I read my books, work my puzzles, and keep to myself.

The flight was filled with the typical litany of petty irritations; a prelude to the delayed landing and breakneck rush to catch my connecting flight My dinner consisted of a crappy sandwich that cost five bucks. The movie was inane, the sound and picture barely functional, and even the meager pleasure it afforded was repeatedly disrupted by pointless cockpit chatter concerning how high we were flying or the speed and direction of prevailing winds. I have learned to insulate myself from all this by playing Sudoku. A handful of these brainteasers can distract me sufficiently so that I can fly across the entire country barely conscious of the cramped, noisy and intrusive assaults of the flying experience—a boy in a bubble.

The bubble burst as we came in for a landing. Lightning storms up and down the Eastern seaboard had forced air traffic control to require more space between inbound aircraft, and we had to circle an additional 30 minutes before being allowed to return to earth. This left only 20 minutes for me to catch my connecting flight, which, of course, was sitting at a gate at the opposite end of the airport. So I ran. It was 8:30 PM. I was hungry, tired, and I needed to pee. But more than anything else I needed to make that plane, so I ran, my little black wheelie-bag trailing behind. As I bobbed and wove my way through the zombie throngs slouching past me I noticed someone else running right along beside me, like an NFL blocker protecting a wide end run. It was the guy I had sat next to the entire flight. It seemed stupid that I never even bothered asking him where he was going. Apparently he was going my way.

The connecting flight was run by Mesa Airlines, the lemonade stand of air travel, and I got to the gate, sweating and out of breath, in what should have been the nick of time. But I was wrong, before even looking at the flight board I knew it—the "fall of Saigon" tumult engulfing the waiting area told me so—our flight departure had been delayed until 11:00 PM. ELEVEN PM! I'd be lucky to get to my hotel by 3:00 AM the next morning at that rate. After a cross-country flight and no sleep I would be a wreck for my presentation the next day. When I informed the twenty-something kid at their check-in counter that this was completely unacceptable, he informed me that it wasn't their problem, it was all orders from the FAA, that I was lucky to have a flight leaving at all that night, and that they had already been forced to cancel half a dozen other aircraft. Then he packed up his gear, shut down the desk, and disappeared into the emptying fluorescent gloom of the late night airport.

"I'm going to miss my gig. I have just spent an entire day flying across the entire country for nothing!" Repeating the word "entire" as many times as possible was helping to anchor my mood. It was at this very moment, after half a century of queer glances and ridicule that my penchant for loud, animated self-conversation finally paid off. Apparently overhearing my lament, and being in the same boat (or on the same plane as the case may be), a gracious Southern couple informed me that the 11:00 PM departure was more than likely a fiction as well.

"The same thing happened to us last month flying up from Raleigh," the gentleman with his comforting Carolina drawl informed me. "We're going to try and rent a car, and you're welcome to join us if you like."

Even a four and a half hour drive through the Deep South with complete strangers sounded better than being stranded alone overnight in an airport and missing my gig, so I accepted on the spot. This scion of Southern hospitality then tried to use his cell phone and his Hertz Gold Card to secure a rental. Unfortunately, thousands of other stranded passengers had apparently preceded us down this escape route, and he was put on a waiting list with best prospects for a car being available somewhere around 2:00 AM. Overhearing this, my former seatmate got on his cell phone and tried renting a car with his Double-triple priority Hertz Gold Card (apparently there are gold cards and then there are gold cards) and he managed to reserve one immediately. We were now a party of four. As we were leaving the waiting area an African American guy, who shared our predicament, asked if he could join us. We quickly concluded that the full size car we were renting could hold five as easily as four. Thus our party coalesced, and we were off to see the wizard.

And in that instant of coming together the techno-bureaucratic nightmare ended and a Tolkien-like adventure began. This serendipitous collaboration acted like a tonic, revitalizing me. Where moments before I had felt drained, isolated, and defeated, I now felt awake to the unknown and uncharted future, alive with possibility and discovery, and energized by the happy creation of our common purpose. The night was no longer hot and humid but Southern and sultry. By class, race, politics, religion, or any other measure we were as unlikely a human constellation as one could imagine, and yet our forced expedition filled us with such buoyant conversation and laughter that we might as well have been college chums at a tailgate party. We even talked dicey politics with a level of candor and civility that hasn't been seen on these shores in many a moon.

"This immigrant business just burns me up," our Southern gentleman offered. "These people come pouring into our country, using our services, while folks who play by the rules wait for years to can get in. It's not fair, it's not right, and they're breaking the law."

"I understand what you're saying," said his African-American seatmate, "but I think we need to take some responsibility for this mess ourselves. We passed NAFTA and CAFTA and our corporations go down to these countries and destroy the local economy and culture so that these folks can no longer feed or support their families. Wouldn't we do whatever it took to take care of our families?"

"You've got a point there. I hadn't thought about it quite like that."

And so it went, onward into the night. When we got to Raleigh I discovered I was driving with a car full of locals. They knew where everything was, and the fastest route to get there, including my hotel. I got dropped right at the front door just after 1:00 AM. Splitting the cost of the car and the gas five ways, my portion of the tab came to $42. That's just slightly more than it would have cost to take a cab from the airport to my hotel.

For me, this was a golden moment. People coming together, strangers trusting each other, helping each other to achieve a common purpose—isn't that what love is? It sure is the kind of country I want to live in. It started me wondering how we might get there, and then I thought—maybe it's been there all along. I'll just have to do a better job of looking for it from now on. At least now I know what I'm looking for.

Barry Flicker, author of Working At Warp Speed, is founder of Basic Training, a Bay Area company helping organizations keep pace with the rapid transformations of the global economy.

Flicker, Barry. 2008. Thanks for the inconvenience. Tikkun 23(1):22-23.