Travelogue - or, How a Snowflake Can Ruin a Perfectly Good Day

When I first started looking into hotel rooms in the Biloxi-Gulfport region of coastal Mississippi, it looked grim. None of the usual chains had vacancies within 50 miles, due either to the fact that the buildings were still unrepaired of the damage from Hurricane Katrina, or to the fact that they were full of FEMA workers and displaced families. So I looked into flying into Mobile, Alabama, renting a car and driving about 60 miles to Biloxi. I booked a room at a Mobile Hampton Inn and began to peruse available flights.

My host for the shoot in the region e-mailed me and said she had found vacancies in the three casinos that had reopened in Biloxi. It would be more convenient to fly into Gulfport, and even moreso to fly out of Gulfport because the ten-minute drive would allow me more shooting time than would the one-hour drive to Mobile. So I cancelled the room in Mobile and booked into the Imperial Palace casino in Biloxi.

The morning of March 2 was grey and turning greyer as the day progressed. By the time I left the office for O'Hare airport, little snowflakes were floating about, certainly not enough to matter. I arrived at the parking lot a little after 11:00am only to find that the garage was full, so I had to park outside. The City of Chicago, in its infinite wisdom, decided long ago that it would not put the luggage cart dispenser machines out in the parking lots at O'Hare, because, as everyone knows, people who travel with lots of luggage can always check it curbside. Well, the skycaps at O'Hare will not check odd-sized, overweight or excess luggage curbside, and odd-sized, overweight and excess is what I have to carry to get all my video crap all over the country, so when I travel alone I have to take it with me to the parking garage, walk INTO the airport to the cart dispensers, walk with the cart back to my car, load the gear onto the cart and walk all the way back into the airport to "begin" my trip.

I always fly United Airlines, where I have my hundreds of thousands of frequent flyer miles and my Premier Executive status. It's not necessarily that they're the best airline to fly, but they're headquartered in Chicago, so they have a lot of flights every day to just about anywhere in the world you want to go... except Gulfport, Mississippi. So I had to fly, changing planes in Atlanta, on Delta Airlines, with which I have ammassed in the last five years of travel, approximately ten frequent flyer miles. To Delta I am but a mere traveler, cattle to be herded into the tiniest stalls, where a fate of slaughter to be butchered into steaks and hamburger is preferred over a cramped existence. And they cut me no breaks on overweight or excess luggage. So the Delta ticket agent frowned politely as he informed me there would be a 100 dollar charge for the TWO extra bags because, as a mere head in the herd, I am only allowed two. And oops! The light kit is fourteen pounds overweight. That'll be another 25 dollars. Actually, this is par for the course. We're used to paying the extra charges because we have to get it there, and there's no other way with the equipment choices we've made. So I paid the charges, got my boarding cards along with the notification that my flight was delayed at least thirty minutes, and was on my way. Security is always a burden because I carry a betacam camera in a Porta-Brace bag onto the plane. With the new TSA rules, I have to take the camera out of its bag (it IS a video camera, after all) and put it in a bin to run through the x-ray scanner. I also have to take my laptop out of my backpack. Once past the x-ray and the magnetometer I have to put the camera back in the bag, but that requires unpacking the rest of the stuff that I jam into the camera bag so I can fit the camera back in properly, and then repacking the other stuff.

When I finished with security I arrived at the gate to discover that the flight had been further delayed, so the 1:10pm flight was now expected to take off around 2:30. The gate agent assured all of us who had to connect in Atlanta that part of this delay was the result of weather around Atlanta, so air traffic out of Atlanta was delayed as well. We were all but guaranteed to make our connections. My boredom was staved off briefly by the entertaining police "chase" covered live on CNN; a distraught, mentally imbalanced woman had stolen a police SUV -- a POLICE SUV!! -- in southern California and was almost quite literally driving around in circles as police and news helicopters followed her every move. Suddenly there was a roadblock and cops briefly swarmed her, then took her into custody. She wasn't black, and there were about fifty news choppers hovering overhead with three-foot-long zoom lenses aimed at the commotion, so the cops didn't beat her senseless...at least not while anyone was watching. With the suspect apprehended, CNN went on to the real news, and to the weather. They showed the national radar map which revealed, in bold, living color that there was not one drip of precipitation falling out of the sky within 300 miles of Atlanta, Georgia! Air Traffic Control is so full of shit! If there are too many damn planes in the sky to process to the ground in a timely manner, then fucking say so! Don't give us this "weather delay" bullshit.

As a United Airlines passenger with Premier status, I enjoy the privilege of boarding the plane in the first group after first class. This privilege always assures me space in the overhead compartment for my camera bag, as it is technically too big to be allowed as carry-on luggage. Any airline employee who balks at its size usually shuts up when they see that it's a $35,000 camera that would surely be crushed in the baggage hold if they forced me to check it. As a Delta Airlines passenger I have no such privilege, so I had to take my chances with the rest of the cattle, boarding in the LAST group, all but assured to have no overhead space. I was lucky and found space -- about ten rows forward of my seat!

The pilot informed us that, due to the weather, our plane needed to be hosed down with de-icing compound, so there would be an additional wait of up to thirty minutes! I began to worry again because I'm certain that planes delayed by "weather" in Atlanta, where the temperature was in the 60s, weren't being further delayed by de-icing procedures! We finally trundled down the runway and, as I felt the fuselage vibrate when the wheels lifted off of the concrete, I looked at my watch: 2:55.

We gated in Atanta at 5:35. Of course, I was in the back of the plane, so when the door opened to let passengers off, it was another ten minutes before I stepped into the airport building. I checked a status board and discovered that my connection to Gulfport had indeed been delayed, but it had taken off just ten minutes earlier...at 5:35... and would be landing in Gulfport in about an hour.

I was directed to the Delta Customer Service desk and informed that the next flight out to Gulfport was scheduled to leave at 8:40pm, however, that flight was full. The next flight after that to Gulfport was at 8:30 the next morning. This would not do, as the shoot was scheduled to start at 8:00am. I had to get there "tonight." The agent told me that there was a flight at 7:00 to Mobile with seats available. Okay, back to plan A... or was it plan B now? Whatever, I'll take it! I called my office and asked our travel person to reschedule my rental car for me to pick up in Mobile and drop off in Gulfport.

Of course, because of Atlanta "weather," the 7:00pm flight was delayed, too. I learned this tidbit of information when I approached the gate desk. The flight was delayed until 8:00, and the gate agents there told me that the flight was oversold, so I might NOT get a seat. Then the departure was moved back to 8:30. Then 8:45. Then 9:00. To my relief they called my name and gave me a boarding card, and I was seated. It was during the flight that I had a brief moment of panic. Luggage. I had no idea where my luggage was or where it might be headed. Did the baggage handlers get the word that I had changed destinations? Did they have time to get my bags onto this plane? Were my bags in Schenectady? OMAHA?!

I arrived in Mobile around 9:00pm (crossing into the central time zone you gain an hour back) and waited for my luggage, but it didn't come out. I found the Delta Baggage Claim office to learn where my bags were.

"My hunch," said the matron of the Mobile Airport Delta Baggage Claim office, "is they're going to Gulfport, the original destination, on the 8:40 flight. It was delayed."

Hmmm. Surprise. "Your 'hunch?' You can't tell me for certain where they are?"

"I don't know, sir. They haven't been scanned."

"What do you mean, 'They haven't been scanned?'" said I.

"All bags are scanned when they're taken off of the plane."

"So you can't tell me where my bags are?" I asked.

"Not until they're scanned, sir."

"Weren't they scanned before getting on the plane?"

"Sir," she said with a condescending smile, "if we tried to scan every bag before we put it on a plane, we'd never get anywhere."

"United Airlines scans every bag onto their planes, and then they scan again when they come off. If you're at Omaha International and your bags were erroneously sent to Schenectady, United Airlines can tell you WHERE THE FUCK YOUR BAGS ARE!" I thought. I didn't actually SAY it because I really wanted to get my bags before the month of March ended. "Oh. Okay," I said.

"So," she said, "you should try to get to the Gulfport airport as quickly as you can to see if you can get your bags when they come off the plane." And, just in case I didn't make it in time, she scheduled the baggage office there to deliver my bags to my hotel.

At 80 miles an hour, I made the drive from Mobile to Biloxi -- a drive the bag claim lady at Mobile Airport estimated at 90 minutes -- in 45. On the way I contacted my host to let her know that the shoot could be in jeopardy if Delta screwed up my baggage delivery. She got on the internet and looked up info on flights into Gulfport and determined that the flight my bags most likely were on was scheduled into Gulfport at 11:30pm. Then she suggested that I get checked into the hotel, do my own check online, and then high-tail it down to the airport to try to intercept my bags if they come off the plane.

I arrived at the Imperial Palace-Biloxi. If you've never been there, picture a building with all of the grandiose hoo-hah of the brightest, brashest casinos of Las Vegas...if you've ever been THERE. Now picture it all alone in the night. Now place amid hurricane ravaged desolation, and you might start to get the creepy feeling of inappropriateness I did. I pulled into the valet lane and had to shout to the valet attendant over the jazz music that blared from speakers tucked into the canopy rafters that I was only going to be a few minutes to check in, get my stuff up to my room, and then come back down to get my car. He shouted back that he would keep it close so that it could be retrieved quickly. I saw him write on the ticket "Keep close."

As I checked in the attractive, young woman at the registration counter asked me how I was doing. I gave her a very brief rundown of the lousy traveling day I had, and she turned to the other registration clerk, another attractive young lady, and said, "What can we do to make him happy?" Well, since my mind dwells in the gutter, when two young, attractive women ponder aloud such a question before me, I picture nothing short of pornographic. I was actually disappointed when she said that she would comp me an upgrade to a suite. My wife wouldn't have approved, anyway.

I went up to my room and, after trying unsuccessfully with both keycards to get the door to unlock, I realized that my room was 2910, not 2901. When I opened the door to 2910 -- on the first try -- I was astounded by the size of the room. An 'L'-shaped living area included a dining table with eight chairs, a sofa, two or three armchairs in the center, a large-screen projection TV (not widescreen or plasma, though) and a bar with stools. The bedroom was probably one-third the size of the living room, with a 'V'-shaped jacuzzi, and a shower big enough for three (damn!). The room had two bathrooms. I would guess that the whole hotel room was about 1,000 to 1,200 square feet! It was obscenely huge, and by far larger than any hotel room I've ever stayed in!

I checked the flights from Atlanta to Gulfport, and I surmised (incorrectly) that my luggage was coming in on a flight at 10:35. I checked my watch -- 10:15 -- and I quickly went downstairs and requested my car from the valet desk. I asked the boy there how long for my car, and he said, "Five to ten minutes."

I stood outside under the annoyingly loud jazz canopy. Ten minutes went by. Fifteen. They were pretty busy. At twenty minutes I was getting more perturbed with each valet customer who arrived after I did and got his or her car before I got mine. I'm a very patient person, and I'm not too eager to participate in a confrontation, and even less eager to initiate one, so it had been a full thirty minutes before I finally went back to the valet desk and said, quite loudly, "Just how long do I have to wait for my car?"

The boy -- and I mean that quite literally; he was all of 19 or 20 years old -- looked at the pegboard of keys and said, "Your car will be right down, sir."

I went back outside and watched as the cars came down in waves of twos and threes, and other people got into their cars after only a few minutes' wait, and drove off to their storm-ravaged properties elsewhere in the region. By the third wave of not my cars, fifteen more minutes had gone by. I practically stormed back in to the valet counter. "Could you please explain to me what the hell is going on with my car?" The boy -- a different one, now -- stammered about, looking at the keys on the wall, looking at my ticket.

"Uh, what kind of car is it, sir?" I told him. "What color is it?" Honestly, I wasn't sure. It was parked outside at Mobile Airport, and it was already dark outside when I picked it up. It wasn't white, it wasn't black. It was somewhere in between. Then he took his attention away from me, took the ticket of another customer and sent a porter on his way to get a car. I can't think of another, better word for "livid," but whatever it is, I was it.

"Is there a manager on duty tonight?"

The boy gestured over his shoulder, "We got two right here, sir."

"Not a valet manager. A hotel manager."

"I'll check, sir."

Fifty minutes after first requesting my car, and five minutes after asking to see the manager, each arrived at the valet area within seconds of the other. She was very apologetic and offered tme comps. I told her I was there only for the night, and I don't gamble. She asked me what room I was in, and I think when I told her I was in 2910 she must have thought "Well, there goes the suite comp idea!" Then she said she could comp me dinner. I looked at my watch and said, "I have to go to the airport to pick up my luggage. By the time I get back here it'll be midnight or later. I'm not eating at midnight!" So she comped me the buffet breakfast. Hoo boy. A free breakfast for an hour of my life taken away from me because a bunch of stupid kids lost my car. She told me to ask someone to call her when I returned so she could give me the comp slip, and to give her the opportunity to explain the reason for the delay, once she found it out for herself.

I left for the airport around 11:15pm. The signs along the interstate were helpful, and then the sign on the state road in Gulfport directed me onto the county road that leads to the airport. And then... nothing. No signs, no arrows. Nothing. I could see what looked like an airfield out in the darkness -- blue lights and flashing strobes. I followed the county road, looking for signs, but there were none. I wound up in a sleeping industrial complex and finally determined that I.was.fucking.lost.

I backtracked to the county road and, there, barely visible at the edge of my headlight beams was a sign, non-reflective, that sported a left-pointing arrow and read, "TERMINAL."

At first I thought I was at the wrong airport, as this one looked like it had been destroyed in the storm. But upon closer inspection I could see that the place was undergoing a major remodeling, and this was actually CONSTRUCTION work. I grabbed a luggage cart, offered from a dispenser in the parking lot, of all places, and went inside, hoping to find my luggage in the baggage claim area, abandoned and waiting for me. It wasn't. I went upstairs to the gate area where I found a young family, two children climbing happily on the chairs, and their parents seated in two of their own chairs, barely awake. The man looked at me.

"Is there another flight scheduled in tonight?" I asked him.

"Yup."

I looked at the flight status monitor. It showed only morning flights...for the next day.

"It's not up there," said the man.

"Where is it coming from?"

"Atlanta." Bingo. The 8:40 flight I couldn't get on, the one my host said was delayed until 11:30. It was my last hope. "It's delayed until 12:11," the man said.

Fuck.

Around 12:20 the bags started rolling out into the claim area, and soon enough, to my relief, mine came out, all four of them. When I got back to the hotel I got another ticket from the valet attendant and grabbed two of the bags I needed with me in the room. I turned and walked, debating whether I should even bother with the manager and her free breakfast. I looked up and saw the hotel manager almost sprinting toward me! She handed me a slip of paper with her signature on it and shouted to me over the stupid sound system that this was the comp form I needed to show to the buffet hostess. Then she told me that earlier the valet ticket the attendants place in the windshield had blown out of my car (it was pretty breezy under that canopy) and they couldn't find it. Somebody stuck a different ticket in the car, so the ticket number on the keys didn't match that in the car. It was inexcusable that none of the valets bothered to tell me, and for that she apologized profusely. A whole hour of your life spent fuming - *poof!* Gone. Enjoy your free breakfast. Hoo boy.

So I went up to my huge suite, enjoyed a full twenty minutes of it before I went to sleep and woke up five hours later to pack everything up, eat breakfast, and check out.

The shoot in devastated Pass Christian, Mississippi, went very well, and the return trip out of Gulfport, back through Atlanta, and into Chicago went smoothly and on time, without so much as an unpleasant employee looking down her nose at me.

Why is it when it doesn't matter, nothing happens?