MY DAY AS A BAG LADY

MY DAY AS A BAG LADY

 



 

Before I was a lecturer on cruise ships, as a special interest speaker, I was a casting director and before that, I was an actress and before that, I was a drama queen...which led me to acting and then to casting and then, well, back up that spiral.  After disembarking from a Royal Caribbean cruise in Baltimore, I came full circle back to drama queen when my flight home to Atlanta was canceled, stranding me in the Baltimore airport for 12 hours.

 

There is no worse airport to be stranded in than Baltimore, which consists of one pitiful concourse with two pitiful restauants (if you want to call them restaurants), and two bathrooms, one of which was 'closed for repair' the day I got stuck there. 

 

Well, there is Gibraltar (as in the rock of), which has no airport really...just a door leading to a step, leading directly onto a plane, whereby you take off on a teeny runway, over a teeny roadway, immediately over the Mediterranean sea.  Gibraltar take-offs are frightful!  If a pilot overshoots this particular 'runway', passengers are immediately swimming with the fishes.  Otherwise, Gibraltar is a perfectly interesting destination - especially the wild apes roaming the island relieving distracted tourists from cameras, purses, and other valuables.

 

But back to Baltimore...

 

The Delta attendant said a 'mechanical failure' canceled the flight and the next one was 12 hours away.  That they were interested in my 'safety' and she was sorry.  Apparently, they were uninterested in my sanity - because there is nothing to DO in the Baltimore airport. 

 

I faked kindness and patience, unlike the other passengers ganging up on her in irate hollers of protest, even though I was seriously annoyed and bored and hungry and worried any inappropriate outburst from me would land me in a Baltimore jail, which may have been a step up from the Baltimore airport, but I was unwilling to test this theory. 

 

This same lady granted me two 'meal vouchers', not that there was any place to get a good 'meal'.  I relinquished at the first snack venue and ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  Later, I sprung for a crabcake, since we were in Baltimore, but the crabcake had those stupid red peppers in it, which cooks add for color unconcerned by the fact that red peppers ruin the taste of most everything else. 

 

Otherwise, I walked up and down that little concourse.  I toyed with my computer as long as I could stand the poor light and seating availability.  I looked around in the one little news stand.  No news.

 

Then I saw it.  A stranded cart against a wall - empty - all mine, and I didn't even have to pay the $1.50 to spring it loose from one of those cart carousels.

 

Enter the drama queen.  I decided to pretend, just an exercise in acting form, if you will, that I was a bag lady - that was my motivation, as they say, and try to distract myself from my mounting anxiety.  I'll just push this little cart around, and act as if, and see what transpires.  This way, I won't have to keep dragging my luggage and my little bags up and down the concourse, but could wheel everything around with me, and just explore. 

 

I pushed this little cart back and forth and collected little things to add into it (new understanding of how people amass odds and ends into their carts we see on streets everywhere...), an abandoned toy here, a straw there, flotsam left behind by people unwittingly participating in my bag lady experiment.  I perfected the hunch over, necessary to convince onlookers I was indeed personifying the airport weird woman.  Gloomily I lurched up and down, people stared, I noticed them staring, mothers pulled their children closer as I passed, people may have wondered, but they dared not wander into my path.

 

At the gate for Atlanta, the crowd waited, sour, and sometimes scolding Delta employees, but I just kept passing by the mass.  I did notice one man, quiet, gorgeous, a soldier in uniform standing off by himself with patience and a different attitude than my fellow passengers.  Tall and blonde and young and leaning with a prideful and knowing assurance that whatever delay he needed to endure would be nothing compared to serving his country on a desert battlefield.  At least that is what I thought he was thinking as I noticed him with each stroll by the crowd.

 

He saw me too.  I noticed him looking at me.  With compassion, sympathy, and perhaps just a tad fearful that I might come too close and infect him with my mental maladaptive behavior.  He just watched.  Me, and all the goings on around him.  Didn't leave the gate.  Didn't sit down.  On guard, he was.

 

Needing more imagination to stimulate me through the boring, long hours, I dreamed of how nice it would be if at the conclusion of this horrible adventure, I would somehow end up seated next to this handsome soldier on our plane out of Baltimore.  But that would be unlikely - there were more than 200 people - it was just a secret dream wish - you know, one of those God tests we're not supposed to give. 

 

Keep strutting on, I told myself.  Eventually, weary from the concourse corridor, I actually stretched out on a bench for the 'bag lady nap' - you know, where you clutch your valuables under you, and sleep in public.  Feeling certifiably nuts, I really fell asleep.  No one tried to take my stuff.  No one wanted anything to do with me.  My ploy worked. 

 

So this is what it's like to be a bag lady, I thought, when I woke and went for that terrible crabcake.  Rubbing my eyes, I wheeled my cart away, glaring at the surprised passengers around the terminal who no doubt thought I'd laid down to die. 

 

Finally, FINALLY, the announcement came that the flight to Atlanta had arrived and would be boarding soon.  I stood one last time in the endless line for the one working bathroom, and when I caught sight of myself in the mirror, my long and ludicrous day appeared more visible on my long, sad face than I had anticipated.  Just get me home already, I pleaded with that bag lady in the mirror.  But I made it through the whole day, with nothing to do, except imagine what it's like with nothing to do.

 

The Delta agent bumped me to first class because I'd been so nice, code for a threat to humanity and possibly needing special attention. 

 

Boarding first, I sank into the cush seat with the extra legroom and the flight attendant quickly offered me warm chocolate chip cookies and drinks and baskets of goodies.  I just closed my eyes, weary and ready to imagine climbing into my waiting warm waterbed at home.  I made it, I thought.  It was an adventure.  And I survived.

 

I thought I heard a voice say "Excuse me", but I guessed it was a row behind me and didn't open my eyes to look.  "EXCUSE ME PLEASE", came the same voice again, and I opened my eyes and looked up and there he was...that soldier.  The very blonde one from the concourse.  No way! Our eyes met and both of us had that Oh God expression - mine was Oh, God, you heard me!  You actually granted my silly wish and are seating this man next to me?  His expression seemed to say, Oh, God, not the 'bag lady' - haven't I endured enough for my country?

 

 He climbed over me to his seat by the window, the flight attendant hurried to offer him edibles as well, and then we got to talking and never stopped all the way to Atlanta.  One of those intimate and instant affinity meetings you hear about on airplanes.  His name was Michael, he'd been deployed for a long time, and he had a lot of interesting stories to tell.  Once we got talking, he realized I had more to push around than that little cart, and we laughed and shared lots of life stories in those couple hours. 

 

Michael said he comes to Atlanta often, and we exchanged phone numbers, even as I 'sensed' we'd never talk again - but lucky me, I got to sit next to the soldier on the delayed airplane back from Baltimore. 

 

And I survived my day as a baglady.  I know I'll not need that skill again, even as I know the drama queen will most certainly make another appearance in another form.  Until then, she's ruling her kingdom on a fantasy flight somewhere next to a soldier named 'Michael'.