*This is a very long story. Read at your own risk and boredom.
5:35am, Friday June 13, 2014
Basking Ridge, New Jersey
My alarm went off.
“Here we go,” I thought.
That day, I was departing at 8:30am from Newark International Airport to fly an hour or so north to Toronto. I was looking forward to the Great White North after spending the past seven days in New York, staying with my cousin in New Jersey, trying to get work done, meeting long-lost friends, and visiting important people.
I was fucking exhausted.
As fun as it was, every morning, I had to wake up at 6am to catch a ride with my cousin to Jersey City where I would take the PATH train to 34th Street. I enjoyed the trip and it was the easiest way to get to New York — it was just too damn early for me. Especially because I’d take the NJ Transit train at night and get back home around 10:30pm. (Oh, and the Kings kept playing late.)
On this last morning in Jersey, I did my final preparations: I sleepily packed my things, did one final check, and said goodbye to the house I called home for the week.
But I’d be back soon enough.
7:20am
Terminal C
Newark International Airport
I walked into the terminal and found a self check-in machine. The screen said “Scan Your Passport” so I tapped my jeans.
My heart sunk.
I left my passport and money clip on the counter at my cousin’s house.
An eerie calmness swept over my body. Fuck. How could I forget that? I slowly called my cousin and told him my situation. Then, I called United (my airline) and learned I had to go to the Special Services desk to rearrange things.
At the counter, I talked to the United representative and explained my situation. She understood and started typing away on her computer. The new gameplan was to go back to my cousin’s place, grab my shit, and come back to wait on standby for the rest of the day.
“Where are the taxis?” I asked.
“They’re upstairs and outside. Wait. You know you need to come back, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Where do you stay?”
“Basking Ridge.”
“Ouch, that’s an expensive cab ride.”
“Ha, I know.”
“Ugh, sorry.” She smiled. “Okay, so I’ll put you on standby for the 12:30pm flight. But I have you booked for the 5:35pm flight.”
I thanked her, raced to the taxi stand, and got a cab. The taxi captain told the driver that he needed to bring me right back from Basking Ridge. Total bill: $128.
“Did you forget something?” he asked in a thick accent.
“Yeah. My passport and wallet.”
“Ahh, I see. Oh well. Everyone’s done something like that before. Everyone.”
Thanks, dude.
We sped through the rain-slicked I-76 and, for some reason, this guy kept honking everyone he passed.
“Where are you from?” I asked.
“Haiti.”
Finally, we got to my cousins house. I grabbed my stupid, stupid shit, raced back to the cab, and jumped inside.
“Are you sure you have everything?” he asked with smile.
Ha, ha. Got me. He spent the rest of the cab ride teaching me about Haitian politics and lifestyle, telling me about his kids (and, thus, why we worked so hard), and honking at everyone. It felt nice to meet an interesting person who was so dedicated to his family. “Maybe I’ll go to Haiti someday,” I thought.
Not now, though.
8:40am
Terminal A
I made it back.
T-minus four hours until my first standby flight.
I sat by the gates, but I was so fucking tired. I didn’t want to buy Wi-Fi because it was expensive and I had no idea how long I’d be at the airport. I also tried to write whatever I could of an article for AskMen, but the juices weren’t flowing — hell, I slept at 1:30am that morning just to wake up a few hours later, and the accumulation of an entire week of shitty sleep reared its ugly head.
Standby came and went, and I headed to Terminal C for lunch. Before I could even walk the whole way to the food court, I sat on a random seat, passed out for 90 minutes, and awoke with my contact lenses feeling like sandpaper.
After lunch (ahem, McDonald’s), I sat at the gate for Stockholm to read a book I bought in the West Village called How To Lose Friends and Alienate People. (An autobiography of mine, of course.) By 3ish, it was time to head back to Terminal A and wait until boarding call. Finally, I thought, I’d get out of here and get to Canada.
Wrong again.
5:05pm
I heard a siren nearby.
“That has to be the worst fucking ringtone,” I thought.
Then, it blared again. This time, however, the sound was coming from my groin. It was my iPhone. I yanked it out and it read:
Fuck. A powerful thunderstorm was en route toward the airport and everyone’s fucking iPhone was buzzing. From my seat, I looked out the enormous glass panes overlooking the tarmac and saw the mean, black clouds inching closer.
Not good.
First came the wind. Then the rain. Then the lighting and thunder.
5:20pm
Getting close to departing, I thought. Let me check the screen to double-check the time.
This time, however, it didn’t say 5:35pm. It said, “Delayed Until 8:00pm.” (Why did no one tell us?!)
I stood by the window, gazing at the ugly storm. Black clouds hung over the tarmac and lighting raged in the air and came within a half-a-mile. (For those who don’t know, you count how many seconds it takes for the thunder to come after the lightning, then divide by five.)
Then, I felt someone looking at me as they walked toward the window. I turned around an saw a short, athletic blonde girl strolling to witness the storm. She wore a pink headband and a gray sweater that read “Versailles.” We bantered for a bit until she left to her gate heading to Dayton, Ohio.
A few minutes later, I noticed a woman crawling on the ground to plug her iPhone charger into a hidden outlet behind one of the booths at the boarding gate.
“Whoa. How the hell did you find that?” I asked in amazement.
“Haha, I’m like a ninja,” she replied. “I have a knack for these things.”
“Ha, nice. I’d even know you could plug your charger there.”
“Shh, well don’t tell anyone…”
I liked her playful banter. She was in her early-thirties (maybe late-twenties), brunette, and gorgeous — too well-dressed for such a shitty airport.
“Where are you off to?” I asked.
“Nashville,” she said with a smile.
“Yee-haw.”
“Haha.”
“Actually, I have no idea what they say down there.”
“Me neither. I’m going for my friends bachelorette party.”
“Oh, that is awesome.”
“Haha, yeah. We’re going to something called a pedal tavern — it’s like a big bicycle where you can drink or something. But I have no idea why it’s in Nashville. I didn’t know there was anything to do there.”
We sat on the floor, talked more, and I found that she was an eighth-grade math teacher.
“Ooh, show me your ‘mean face,'” I said.
“Haha, my what?” she asked and started laughing.
“You know, the face you give when you mean business and want everyone to shut up.”
“I can’t. I’m smiling too much, I won’t be able to do it.”
“Try. I gotta see it.”
“And I’m chewing gum.” She took out her gum and tried unsuccessfully because, again, she was still laughing. “I suck at this.”
In return, she tested me on the quadratic equation. I knew the tune — which you sing with “Pop Goes The Weasel” — but I couldn’t remember the formula.
This went on for a while until I noticed a ring. Hmm…
“Hey, what did you do for your bachelorette party?” I asked.
“Oh, I just took it easy and went to dinner with friends.”
Fuck.
6:20pm
I was still talking to Sarah (that was the married woman’s name) when I peeked at the screen with flight times. But this time it didn’t say “Delayed Until 8:00pm.”
It read, “CANCELLED.”
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
“Ugh. My flight got cancelled.”
“Oh no, I’m so sorry!”
“I think I need to talk to United about that.”
“Yeah, ask them. I’ll watch your stuff for you.”
I walked over to the counter and they told me I needed to go to United Airlines Special Services desk. The only problem was that the line was fucking enormous. I had no choice.
So I lined up.
I also called United Airlines and they put me on hold. For 40 fucking minutes.
In the meantime, I talked to the guy in front of me. He was a short, ramrod-straight high school senior, but friendly. He just came from a week-long camp at West Point and was heading to Detroit and then right off to Annapolis for the Naval Academy’s program. In front of him were two teenagers from England heading to Cincinnati for a month-long summer camp.
Everyone was friendly and in (surprisingly) good spirits, even with the prospect of an overnight stay in glorious Newark, New Jersey. Even the Brits.
“I guess they’ll put us in a hotel?” they asked.
“I have no idea,” I said. “I think. As long as I get a bed, I don’t care, ha.”
Finally, I got through to United on the phone. They put me on a flight that left next morning at 8:44am, and I asked about accommodations.
“We don’t handle accommodations,” the representative said. “You have to ask the airport.”
“Well, I’m at the Special Services line. Is that correct?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“Alright then” So I kept waiting.
In front of the Brits were a huge Czech family that came from a wedding in Sweden and were going back home to St. Louis. I couldn’t help but make conversation; first, their Mom lost her shit in the queue and I started laughing and, second, their cousin — a 5-year-old girl — kept staring at me. (No Asians in St. Louis?)
Unfortunately, United told them the next flight left on Sunday.
Fucking Sunday.
7:30pm
Still in queue.
I turned around and noticed a beautiful, brunette girl behind me in line. She was much taller than me, gorgeous, and wore a sweet-looking, light-blue North Face jacket with a furry outside, shorts, and blue Nike Frees.
“I like your jacket,” I stupidly said. “It’s furry.”
She smiled. “Thanks.”
She was making a stopover after spending a week in France and heading back to Indianapolis. We talked and laughed about France, Indianapolis, and random stuff like gardening. (She called herself a “greenthumb.”) We got along great, but she would say these things that made her seem younger than she looked. So I asked:
“What year are you?”
“Oh, I’m going to be a Junior next year,” she said.
“Oh cool. College?”
“High school.”
AAAAAAHHHHHH!! EWW!! GROSS!! This whole fucking time?! I desperately tried to let the conversation die, but she kept yapping, so I pulled out my iPhone, opened the LA Kings app, and tried to listen to Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals after that.
Minutes later, Justin Williams scored the first goal and I threw my hands in the air with a piercing “Woo!”
The Brits were not impressed.
9:25pm
I made it to the front of the queue and felt like dancing. The representative confirmed I was on the flight the next morning, so I asked about accommodations.
“Sorry, we only reimburse for mechanical issues. Honey, if we reimbursed every time there was bad weather, we’d be out of business.”
“Fucking smart ass,” I thought to myself. “So I have to spend the night here?” I asked.
“Well, that’s up to you. But if you do, you should go to Terminal C. That’s our main terminal and it’s open 24-hours.”
Fuck.
I called my cousin to tell him what happened and he said, if I wanted to, I could take a cab back to his place, stay the night, and get a ride back to the airport the next morning. But I couldn’t be fucked. In my mind, I already made a $128 fuckup because of my mistake — I didn’t want to compound it.
“I guess I’ll just stay here,” I said. Then I headed to Terminal C.
10:25pm
Terminal C
I hadn’t eaten dinner yet, so I bought a small sandwich and a fruit cup for $12. That’s how airports get you — exorbitant meal prices. But it could’ve been worse: I could’ve been working there.
(If you want to see people who truly hate their jobs, go to an airport food court after 10pm on a Friday. These people make you feel bad for just looking at them.)
I sat there eating my stale food, looked up, and saw the same blonde girl with the Versailles sweater from before.
“I guess if you’re sitting here, that means you didn’t make it to Dayton?” I said.
“Haha, nope. I’m stuck here.”
“Yep. Me too.”
We chatted for a while and went our separate ways. Then, I sat with a bunch of Rangers fans and watched the tail-end of the first overtime. Then the bar manager turned off the TV, but at that moment, I ran into someone I knew from the United line who was in the same boat as me. “I guess we better find a place to sleep,” he said and we wandered around the empty terminal looking for a secluded spot.
We found an empty gate and set up camp. The problem with those fucking airport benches was that, although they were padded, they had armrests so you couldn’t sprawl yourself on the bench. Instead, my friend pulled two benches together that were facing each other and we made narrow little beds that were about four-and-a-half feet long with a gap in the middle. It was horribly uncomfortable.
I couldn’t sit still so I wandered around the terminal until I found a closed bar that left their TVs on and had the Stanley Cup game. I sat on the railing anxiously watching the action.
The moment I saw Toffoli’s juicy rebound off Lundqvist, I knew that was it. Martinez nailed it and I leapt up and started cheering.
“Who won?” passersby asked.
“The Kings!” I screamed.
The New Yorkers cried out in unison:
“Argh!”
“Fucking Rangers!”
“Shit.”
And, “How many more years!?”
One guy pointed at me with a smile and yelled, “LA!”
“Go Kings go!” I answered.
12:40am, Saturday, June 14
Terminal C
“I can smell the Listerine on you,” my roommate said when I walked back from the bathroom.
“It comes in the clutch, my dude.”
“Are you gonna sleep?”
“Yeah, I’ll just read a few pages of this book. You?”
“Eh. I’ll just play some games on my phone and sleep.”
“Cool man. G’night.”
“Night.”
I flipped through a Men’s Fitness I got from American Media’s office in New York, then put a beanie over my eyes and went to sleep.
5:50am
Something smelled.
It was me.
I slept like absolute shit. Everything hurt. At some point during the night, I even folded my laptop case in half, placed it on my backpack and used that as a pillow as I stuck my legs out through a crack in the chair — just to make things a little more comfortable.
It also got cold. I was already wearing my hoodie and I didn’t want to unpack my clothes just to get a jacket so I took my jeans and laid it across my legs. Worse, the intercom periodically blasted stupid announcements that jolted me awake like a gunshot.
6:45am
Terminal A
I walked to the window of my gate and found the same Czech family from the evening before when I was in queue. They looked exhausted and their 5-year-old cousin was delirious — she was dancing and singing that fucking song from Frozen.
I sat with them and chatted. They were sassy and funny and we got along very well. In the meantime, I nervously watched the screens to make sure the flight was on-time and that I was going to Canada.
It was. We all exchanged hugs and well-wishes as I said goodbye to some great, new friends.
9:40am
Even though I boarded the plane an hour ago, the plane was still waiting to take off. By then, I didn’t care — I knew my ordeal was over.
Life’s crazy sometimes: if I would’ve just brought my damn passport and money clip, I would’ve flew out on time, missed the thunderstorm, and enjoyed a nice Friday night, celebrating the Kings’s Stanley Cup with friends. Instead, I spent an entire day at Newark International Airport and wasted money.
But, in the end, it wasn’t that bad — I still had fun, met a lot of cool people, and made the most of a crappy situation.
And that’s worth something.
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