Travel Tales II

Alone in a ghost airport, stranded in a foreign city that I later learn is the 2nd murder capital of the USA. And they got gats, bro'! It takes 30 mins t0 reach the clinically depressed Three Degrees at the counter, waiting to deflect any individual tale of woe from their 'customers'. As instructed as 'policy' they'll only supply the services explicitly asked for.

Thus when I complained about having no luggage and no toiletries, I was tossed off with a complimentary toiletry bag, and expected then to PFO. I subsequently waited through the queues to acheive a complimentary phone card, a hotel room and a dinner voucher (even though this was 2 am and way past dinnertime). Later, we stranded Europe-bound passengers from that flight compared complimentary vouchers, and I was the clear winner, having ridden a thin line between aggression and justified assertion.

I ganged up with 3 other passengers that night to split taxi costs, who turned out to be a young male Jewish Israeli, an elderly born-again Brazilian and an England-emigrated Scot. I kid you not- you couldn't make this up. And- seriously- all of these rode on the back of my customer wheedling skills. None of them had a hotel booking or a phone card before they saw my technique with the 3 Degrees and their white supervisor, and rode on my coattails.

Needless to say, I got on best with #3 of these, to whom I could complain about the lack of access to booze at 2 am and the weirdness of Murrcans. He ended up piking up all our tabs for the taxi back to the airport on expenses, cause he was a guy. He was the only one of our ill-gotten party to understand my distaste of the messianic gospel radio to which my alarm clock was tuned. But #2, the older Brazilian Protestant also fell in love with me for making sure she got an airline-booked hotel, for carrying her heavy suitcase up a steep flight that night, making sure she got to the airport OK with us the next morning and arguing for further meal vouchers for her. She told me I was a good person and blessed me as we parted at Security. Whaddaya say, except as I do- may your God bless you too? #1 wanted to use me for cab fare-sharing that night, and after seeing me showered and refreshed the next morning, wanted to make *me* too for Rosh Hashanah. Yeuch. I gave all 3 strangers a true story of a late love and they all wished me luck.

to be continued