[Rhodes22-list] ss report: Waiting for Detelin

[R22RumRunner at aol.com]

Stan,
Next time take you laptop computer. All the information you were looking  for 
is available on the Internet, including names of people on flights and  
times. :) By asking real people real questions, you just piss them off.
 
Rummy
 
 
In a message dated 3/25/2008 3:34:31 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
stan at rhodes22.com writes:

(for  when the List gets too quiet)   


"Dido" is no longer with  us.  He has moved on (with our blessings) to a 
better job with  "Regulator" on the other side of town.   Rose and I had gone to 
the  airport to pick him up.  He was coming in from Dulles on the last leg of  
his usual flight pattern from Bulgaria.  The flight was scheduled to  arrive 
at 6:02 and I played it safe by arriving at ORF at 5 pm.  (Rose  had finally 
found out that ORF is code for Norfolk International.    What a beautiful 
Airport.   I would have named it JKI (Joyce Kilmer  International).   The 
architectural firm had been handed an  unspoiled waterfront section of town with the 
instructions to save every  possible tree.   And so they did.   The entrance 
road,  winding around water ways and under tall leafy limbs, makes its way to a  
beautiful terminal, in turn connected by a long covered moving sidewalk to  
parking and baggage buildings tucked in this gem of an airport, whose warts I  
was soon to discover.

The first thing I noticed when the  moving sidewalk ejected me into the 
arrival and departure chapel's upper  terminal floor was the yellow notice advising 
that United 7239 was going to be  one half hour early.   I had never heard of 
a flight being  early.   Well not a one hour flight being a half hour early  
!   Even I, who had the US Navy Air Corp on my resume, knew  something was 
wrong in Denmark, or at least in Bulgaria.   All of  the terminal schedule 
displays were in agreement:  United flight 7239  arriving from Dulles was going to 
be a half hour early.   Good thing  we came early.   With my computer disturbed 
by the math, I kept  checking and rechecking the displays until, low and 
behold, the yellow sign  disappeared and the flight was now listed as being on 
time.

Rose and I settled into the first two seats this side of the security  border 
so no arrivees could pass us undetected.   Flight after  flight unloaded.   
No Dido.   Having lost trust in the  schedule displays I continued checking for 
changes.   When a flight  arrived the sign would say, "Landed".   No such 
sign for my now  overdue flight.   In fact all of a sudden my flight completely  
disappeared from all screens.   Surely, with all these bright faced,  tagged, 
uniformed airport personnel randomly flying around inside the terminal  I 
would quickly find out Dido's fate and the fate of United's 7239, off the  screen
somewhere between Washington and Norfolk. 

The  easiest person to ask was the attendant at the security gate.   He  said 
he works for a different company and has no idea.   I noticed a  sign that 
said this way to "Information", a few football fields to the  east.  The lone 
attendant, whose uniformed chest was loaded with military  medals, said that he 
worked for another company and according to his computer,  that flight had 
landed on time.   He was not interested in  understanding why the schedule 
displays had missed this; they worked for a  different  company.   I had a bright 
idea.   I would  take the external elevator for its full one floor run to the 
United ticket  counter underneath me.  It was a two second trip but I concluded 
the view  made the cost of this glass walled theme park ride worth every penny 
that it  must have cost.

At United's ticket counter neither of the  two parallel lines of potential 
flyers was moving so I bullied my way to one  of the three attendants.   He said 
he worked for a different company  and left.  The second attendant admitted 
working for United and said that  that flight had not landed, that the non 
moving lines were waiting to take  that flight back to wherever it had come from 
and that there was much snow in  Chicago where that flight from Dulles 
originated and that that plane has just  now made it into the Chicago air and that it 
would be very late tonight before  it landed in Norfolk since it still had to 
make it to Dulles.  At least  she didn't work for a different company.   She 
worked for United - I  would go with her.   And I would be a good citizen and 
go back and  bring the Information bunker up to speed.   But another look at 
his  computer confirmed again, at least for the Information attendant, that 7239 
 had landed.   He explained that the company he works for has t
o  go with the company the computer works for no matter what the company the  
ticket lady works for says.  

I asked him to call  the pilot's lounge and see if they knew anything and he 
said he can not do  that.  The tower?  He said he can't do that.  Chicago?  He 
 said he does not have that number.  He said I should go back to United  and 
ask them to verify their story.   So back I made it to the  United ticket 
line.  They seemed to be busy giving refunds but I went to  the front of the line 
and the helpful lady went back to the computer - the  flight was somewhere in 
the air and she had no fixed time of arrival yet and  that I should go home 
and come back later.  Home was hours away in NC so  I decided to make one final 
visit to Information who stuck to his story that  the flight had landed.  I 
asked if there was some sort of court of  appeals I could take my case to - he 
said no such higher  authority.   In a fit of humorous creativity I asked if 
there was a  lower authority I could go to, like "baggage".   To my surprise the 
 Information attendant was impressed, so off I hiked to the tiny
United baggage office which turned out to be conveniently located at the  
farthest end of the complex.  By now most of the airport was closed down  and all 
the commercial booths were under tarps but the United baggage office  light 
was on and the office door was open and there was a nice lady behind the  
counter shuffling luggage.

I told her my story of  getting different endings for flight 7239.   She 
looked at me with  amusement and said she worked for a different company and could 
tell me  without any ifs or buts that that flight had long since landed and 
that she  personally had taken its unclaimed bags off the carousel.  And 
further  more that she could tell me that Detelin had not been on that  plane.   I 
exploded, "What, you know who is on each flight?" and she  said, "of course".   
My god, I had stumbled onto the Central  Intelligence Agency of the entire 
airport operation cleverly headquartered in  baggage.   I would go back to the 
United counter and tell them the  flight they were looking for had actually 
landed long ago and that is why they  could not find it.   By now I had found 
that by taking the walking  sidewalk in the wrong direction I could run and get 
to the other end much  slower which was great for my exercise program.   On the 
escalator  part of my trips I would go up the down stairway.   
My  exercising exercise got me late to United ticketing territory.  It was  
closed and its two non moving lines had moved.   Somehow this  darkened, quiet, 
peaceful part of the airport inspired an inspirational  thought.   I would 
ask the CIA bag lady for the passenger names on  the next flight from Dulles 
that was due in at 11:30.   Brilliant.

A flight had come in from somewhere and the  bag lady was doing her thing.  
She did not seem pleased to see  me.   By now I was well known by most of the 
airport's night  crew.  The Information guy waved to me as I flew by his  
booth.   I said to the bag lady, "tell me if Detelin is on the 11:30  flight".   I 
think this is when my bearded face finally came into  full focus and reminded 
her of the oath.  "It is against the law for me  to give out passengers' 
names."

Now I am not  dumb.   I have seen "All the King's Men" two times.   I  know 
how Bernstein and Woodward handle these kinds of  situations.

"I don't want you to tell me the names of any  of the passengers" I said, " I 
just want you to tell me if I should wait for  the 11:30 ".

The bag lady,  relieved by my professionalism, whispered, "wait for the 
11:30".


What does one do at an airport for six and  one half hours, other than use 
the gym.

Rose and I  noticed a lot of loving.  As each flight unloaded, as soon as its 
 passengers crossed the security line, someone on the insecure side grabbed  
them and kissed them - sometimes for indecently long times.   What  the hell, 
I would grab the solo traveling ladies and hug and kiss them.   then say, 
"Oops, I am sorry.  I thought you were someone  else".   (With Rose sitting there, 
this was my fantasy so let me add  that each time I broke off with the 
hugging and kissing and got to the part  where I said, Oh, I thought you were 
someone else, there were expressions of  disappointment.)  

It looked like it was going to  take a day to pick up Dido but 11:30 came 
just in time.   The flight  was on time.  Dido was the first one to cross the 
security line and I  found myself saying, "What are you doing here so early.  We 
did not  expect you for another two days.   Rose, on the other hand, quietly  
got off her now well warmed seat and hugged and kissed Dido - for an  
indecently long time and he opened his bag and gave her a beautiful Bulgarian  wool 
blanket.   And what does the one who did all the hard  investigative exercising 
and fantasizing get?

Well maybe  the short lived satisfaction that goes with   "mission  
accomplished"....


I'll sign this one  with a Spitzer since the end sounds like one - or maybe  
Carter.
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