Luck or Suck

In the course of my travels I have come to realize that there is a fine line between luck and suck. I have written of earlier highs and lows as a wayward traveler. And this most recent trip has had both.

I flew to Phoenix from Chicago on May 30. Uneventful flight, no drama. I have a good friend in Phoenix, and I was fortunate enough to get two evenings free, spending one at dinner with him, and the other at his home dining with his him, his wife, and their two painfully adorable kids. Luck.

On June 3 I flew to Los Angeles – again no drama – and met at LAX bag claim my client’s producer/director with whom I was to shoot a video piece. From there we rented a minivan and drove leisurely to our hotel in the Thousand Oaks area, in the northwest reaches of the megalopolis that is the City of Angels. Fortune smiled upon me that day as the subject of the video had informed us that he had a wedding to attend Saturday, so the original plans to shoot on that day were off. We had the afternoon and evening free! Luck. The producer/director and I have become friends over the past year, so, with a free evening we planned to get a bite to eat and then see about catching “The DaVinci Code” at a local theater.

If you've never been to Los Angeles, suffice it to say that it is a veritable source overload for anything you might be looking for. We asked the hotel front desk clerk if there were any decent restaurants close to the hotel, and she handed us a three-page list, stapled at a corner, of restaurants that were within a 2-mile radius! We were both in the mood for steak, so we wound up at a Stuart Anderson’s Black Angus restaurant. When we arrived there it was approximately 6:15pm, and I fully expected to have to wait in line, but when we walked in, the hostess – who looked all of 12 years old – walked us straight to a table. Luck. We ordered, got our food – cooked, if not to perfection, at least to order (Luck) – and we left. We used the Hertz Neverlost GPS system in the minivan to find us the nearest movie theater, where we walked in to the ticket lobby at 7:34pm. “The DaVinci Code” was listed to start at 7:30. Both my client and I have read the book, so I wasn’t too worried if we missed the first few minutes. There was a line, so we probably didn’t get into the auditorium until nearly 7:45pm.

We sat down, saw two trailers, a short film titled, “Buy Your Popcorn, Sit Down, Turn Off Your Cell Phones and Shut Up," and our movie started! Luck!

The next day it only got better. The subject of our video is quite well to do. He has an incredible house made into a beautiful home by his professional interior decorator wife. Generous to a fault – after we finished taping for the day, during which he fed us lunch – he insisted that we stay for dinner and a sit-down in the hot tub with cigars and wine. Luck. (Yes, this IS California. No, we were NOT naked Luck. …well, I was (SUCK!))

On Monday we had more shooting to do at the man’s office, and then at his home again. I had discovered that this man’s home in Thousand Oaks was literally minutes away from the home of a good friend of mine with whom I was stationed in Montana when we were in the Air Force. Luck. I had forgotten to bring his phone number with me, but I was able to coordinate with Mrs. Farrago to look it up on my computer and get the number to me! Luck!

We finished shooting, and I went to my Air Force buddy’s house where I met his kids for the first time (his wife, whom I met a few years ago, was away working the night shift Suck.)). We talked for hours, reminiscing about our times in the Air Force and updating each other on our lives.

Tuesday morning, however, the magic was gone. I met the client in the hotel lobby for breakfast. The bacon on the buffet table looked as though it had come from those poor atomic bomb test pigs from the 1950s. Suck. The hotel had set the restaurant’s air conditioning temperature to “MEAT LOCKER,” and the main blower was aimed at our table. Suck. We had made our plans to leave the hotel by 8:30am, but at 8:20 we both received serious calls of nature, and we didn’t meet up again until 8:40. By the time we checked out and got the van packed, it was 8:50, and we had 30 miles of L.A. morning rush traffic between us and the airport. SUCK.

By 9:30 I was pretty certain I was going to miss the check-in cutoff for my 10:48am flight. We arrived at the Hertz Car Rental Return center and managed to arrive at the bus with our large cachet of luggage at the same time as 50 other passengers who had turned in their cars just ahead of us. Suck. Of course, at LAX, the United Airlines ticket counters are at the far end of the airport from the Hertz center, last in the long line of terminals (suck); and of course, there were five elderly passengers on our bus who were NOT flying United, plus one younger woman who had some sort of ailment or illness which caused her to walk doubled over and very slowly…also not flying United Airlines. Suck.

We finally arrived at the United terminal just in time for me to miss the 30-minute cutoff time by three minutes. Suck! I had to book a different flight. Where my original flight was a non-stop from L.A. to New Orleans, booked in all aisle seats, and scheduled to arrive at 4:30pm, my new itinerary was a flight connecting in Chicago (HELLO!), and arriving in New Orleans at 10:00pm, in window seats. Suck! The ticket agent told me the flight to Chicago was scheduled to leave at 12:50. I swear that’s what she said.

I went to the gate area and hunted until I found a seat near an electrical outlet so I could work on revising a script for one of my co-workers. Luck?

Okay, so the flight I missed was at 10:48, nearly 11:00. By the time I got to the gate area it was about 10:55. I finally sat down and spread out with my laptop to work at approximately 11:10. Boarding for a 12:50 flight would start around 12:20, so I had more than an hour to work and, around 12:10, shut down, walk 75 yards to the McDonald’s, grab a bag of heart disease and breeze onto the plane, right?

After about 20 minutes of work, at 11:28am, I heard an amplified voice say, “(mumble, mumble) to Chicago will begin boarding momentarily.” I pulled out my boarding passes and read, “…DEPARTS 12:00.” WHAT?! 12:50 my ASS!” Suck. I began to leisurely gather my things, as boarding was already starting, and I wasn’t going to make it to be the first on board. Then, suddenly, I heard over the P.A. system, “Passenger (Farrago) to the desk, please. Passenger (Farrago).” I’m certain it meant I was being awarded a free upgrade to First Class, for which I had idiotically neglected to request an upgrade! LUCK! My laptop was still out, my backpack had puked some stuff out, and I had cords to wrap. I couldn’t leave the stuff unattended or the police might come and confiscate or destroy it.

I finally got my crap together and I ran to the gate desk. I said to the agent there, “You called for (Farrago?”) And the guy just sorta smiled at me. I said, “I’m (Farrago). You called my name.”

He said, “I have all the passengers I need, thank you.”

I said, “You called my name. Why did you call my name?”

He gave me a slightly dismissing wave and said, “My apologies, sir. I have the passengers I need.” I felt like I had just been uninvited to the popular girl’s party. SUCK!

So I boarded the plane, sat in my window seat (suck) and fumed at the gate agent who wouldn’t tell me why he had called my name though I knew. I just knew.

Just as I had begun to calm myself down – saying to myself that it was really all my own fault; I should have planned on leaving earlier; I shouldn’t have wasted so much time getting ready; I should have gotten a colostomy bag installed; I should have paid closer attention to the information on my boarding pass – just as I had begun to get over it, Chris Farley incarnate sat down in the middle seat, beside me. Suck. And “beside” is a relative term. And by “relative term” I mean so much of his body was touching me (SUCK! SUCK! SUCK!) through most of the flight, he might as well have been a relative of mine.

So, you see, the fine line between luck and suck can be measured by as little as the time it takes to take a dump, or – in the case of the First Class seat that was not meant to be – the time it takes to read a freaking boarding pass.

Worst of all, however, is that this leg of the trip deposited me in New Orleans. S U C K ! I guess I should have seen it all coming.