Introduction
Hello, and welcome to the podcast. My name is Nate and this is Don’t Remember Me Like This, the podcast where all my best ideas go to die.
At the head of this episode, I’d like to call out my daughter. She asked for a little what’s up in the next podcast episode. Hey kiddo, I love you a lot and if you’re listening to this in bed you need to go to sleep soon. I’ll try to keep the swears to a minimum for you. Although, this episode has some pretty colorful language so, if Child Protective Services comes calling maybe just tell them I told you to skip over this one. Fun fact everybody, this kid has been threatening to make her own podcast some day. I for one can not wait to see what she cooks up. She is super smart and bonkers funny and, as long as she works hard and doesn’t get all frustrated (like that one time) I’m certain whatever she coughs up is going to be golden. So, we all have that to look forward to. Go get ‘em, kiddo!
This week’s episode is all about everything going terribly wrong in that theater of international misery: the airport. Or, as this episode is titled—The Unfairport.
What is it about airports that has a way of pushing so many of us to the brink? And, some of us, even over the brink? Maybe it’s not just one thing, but a different kind of hell for all sorts of people. Whatever it is, the results are often memorable and end up on youtube.
Though none of these stories are about COVID or mask drama in the skies, it’s hard to find a better illustration of how introducing something as innocuous and pedestrian as a facemask could become such a “final straw,” and cause so many grown-ass adults to have a complete and total hissy fit. The COVID pandemic was pretty alarming in that regard, revealing just how close so many of us are to the edge.
To really bring this home is a fascinating little nugget from a report by the National Center for Biotechnology Information:
“Most passengers recognize the logic and importance of wearing a mask to protect themselves and others. From March 2020 through the end of that year, though, there was a noticeable uptick in the reports of harassment and aggression from non-compliant passengers. In early 2021, the prevalence and intensity of aggressive passenger incidents surged, coincident with intensified efforts to politicize masks. It is hard to point to a single factor but the combination of politicizing masks, less civility, higher passenger loads, pandemic fatigue, and expanded alcohol service have fueled these occurrences. In 2021, a whopping 72 percent of such incidents reported to the FAA involved non-compliance with masks.
Passenger non-compliance with mask policies has come in many forms; in some cases, it is passive (e.g. the passenger who takes hours to consume a snack and a soda) and, in other cases, it is active (e.g. the passenger who removes their mask after pushback and openly refuses to wear it, either properly or at all). The reactions to flight attendants’ efforts have also come in many forms ranging from threatening, violent, or abusive behavior with members having been struck, spat on, verbally harassed, and ignored.”
I titled this episode “The Unfairport" because these three stories all take place in an airport and wrestle with this idea of unfairness in some regard. But this is not just confined to airports. I touched on this concept of “unfairness” in the last episode, part two of Winter Vignettes. It seems like a recent phenomena, what used to be life’s regular old challenges is now chalked up to this idea of unfairness. “The world is treating me unfairly.” Or, “I am being treated unfairly.”
If I could trace it back to an origin, it’d be certain political figures—politicians who a lot of Americans looked up to—bemoaning this perceived “unfairness” in how they were being treated.
The rise of unfairness seems to have begun around 2016, so I’ve had plenty of time to get used to it. But I just can not even.
I grew up with this idea that when something goes wrong:
You probably were either directly or tangentially responsible for whatever went wrong (in essence, to varying degrees, that shit’s on you.)
If not, then you press charges and,
Regardless of who is responsible for what, the only people who can make the best of an unfortunate situation are ourselves.
Whatever the situation, we move forward. We don’t gripe about what’s unfair. We find a way to move forward and hope we become smarter, leaner, and more capable than we might’ve been before we knew better.
So this idea of “unfairness” will always haunt me. Like, if you take a step back for a moment and think of how pathetic it sounds when a grown adult bellyaches about what is “fair” or “unfair.” It is unseemly and grotesque. I remember feeling embarrassed for people who complain out loud and on the record about being treated unfairly and I probably won’t ever get used to it. Nor should I. It’s weird.
Don’t be weird people. Be normal. And if you can’t be normal, then at least act normal.
Jaclyn says I can’t tell people that, because what is “weird” and “what is “normal?” And I told her, yeah, yeah you can tell people to be normal. Because weird is weird. And it’s the same for normal. And if anyone here needs further illustrations on what is what, keep on listening because we’ve got a whole lot of weird coming up now, in this next episode of Don’t Remember Me Like This titled, The Unfairport.
I hope you enjoy.
The Unfairport
The TSA agent was taking a long time to examine the contents of my carry-on under the X-Ray scanner. Much longer than the other bags. She called two other agents over. I watched anxiously as she pointed at something on the screen, murmured details to the other agents and then nodded over at me. They were all looking at me. So I waved, “hello.”
One of the agents took my bag, while the other agent ushered me over to a private station so they could open my bag and take a peek inside.
There was another traveler at the security stall next to mine. As we were getting our hands swabbed for bomb-making residue, he made sure to lock eyes with me and roll them around in his head like, ‘Can you believe this?!’ The way only white guys do when made to suffer the injustice and indignity of a standard security check.
I noticed the two TSA agents going through his things. They were pulling knife after knife from his bag and laying them on a table. And these weren’t just pocket knives. These were knives for disemboweling and goring a hippopotamus. In the hands of a child, they could pass for a longsword.
There were eight knives in total. Spread out on the table the deadly arrangement might have been considered impressive at, say, a weapons convention for men with overactive inferiority complexes. But at an airport, it was highly alarming and radiating danger.
I was as shocked as the rapidly growing crowd of TSA agents.
How did he fit all that in his bag?!
I overheard one of the guards say to the man, “Sir,” he said, as cautiously as possible, with a latex-gloved hand out, “You can’t bring these on the plane. Did you even read the list of prohibited items?”
The traveling butcher argued, “Yeah but, these are just knives. What seems to be the issue?”
The TSA agents looked at each other, then back at him, sideways. They seemed unimpressed. Their expressions indicated they’d been well steeped in the casual wickedness of entitled travelers whose plentiful red flags indicated that, if properly motivated, they’d be capable of grounding an airliner with a grape—let alone a murderous bouquet of ren-fest cutlery.
I could tell the TSA agents sensed the argument into which they were inexorably being pulled. They looked exhausted. They certainly didn’t appear to have the bandwidth to suffer through another riot act from a Mr. So-and-so who should be allowed on the plane with [insert item everybody knows isn’t allowed on a plane here].
Predictably, the pushy butcher escalated the situation. “Now, come on,” he said, making for his belongings. “I have a flight to catch. With my tools, thank you very much.”
I have to say, I admired the guy’s approach—coming in hot with the big pressure. As if the inconvenience of a missed flight was enough to persuade these unflappable and understandably grumpy federal agents. He seemed positively surprised they were not going to allow him and his collection of swords to board a pressurized tube, packed stern to bow with people meat.
The agent at my station found and removed a small bag in my carry-on. Inside was an assortment of alcohol, small airplane bottles of bourbons and vodka. This was not what he was looking for so he set it aside noting, “You know, the airlines really don’t like you bringing your own booze, right?”
I said. “I mean, doesn’t everybody know that?”
The agent looked up from rummaging in my bag and asked, “Are you kidding?!”
He found what he was looking for, a bag of ground coffee. He placed the coffee in a scanner and wiped it down, presumably for more bomb-making residue. It turned out to be just coffee (thank God). The agent returned it to my bag and wished me a pleasant trip, suggesting I be discreet about the booze.
The sky-butcher had been watching this little transaction and he seemed indignant, poised on the cusp of raising hell—possibly about how coffee has caffeine in it, and how caffeine is a drug, and how this amounted to TSA agents allowing me to board a plane with a bag (and who knows what else), stuffed to brimming with drugs, meanwhile forbidding him his traveling collection of knives.
He said nothing though. He had some big decisions to make, and in a hurry too since his flight was about to leave, or so he claimed. Either he could miss his flight by taking his dumb knives elsewhere, or by shipping them to his destination. Or, he could put them in the trash and get on the plane. Either way, it was a tough break what he’d gotten himself into, even if he’d be incapable of noticing this was his own doing.
My flight boarded as per usual. There were the customary tiers of passengers allowed onto the plane in waves of descending privilege and class, from the first class crowd, parents with young children, veterans, and then those who paid extra for early boarding.
I’ve always been bewildered by this order. Why is everyone so eager to get on the airplane? Airplanes are terrible. They’re stuffy and uncomfortable. Why would you want to spend more time on the airplane?
Myself, I prefer to spend as little time on an airplane as possible. I’ll sit out the boarding of my section, even the sections after me just so I can enjoy a couple petty minutes on life earth.
This is especially true if I have an aisle seat where priority boarding only means I’ll inevitably have to undo my seatbelt and upend every customization I’ve made for my little nook to allow some jerk to take their window seat after me.
Finally, there was a last call for passengers at our gate—my cue to gather up my belongings and saunter unobstructed down the jet way, down the aisle, all the way to my seat.
Our flight was full up. Inside the plane was a swarthy whorl of hot breath, perfume, and farts.
To my surprise, the window seat next to my aisle seat was empty. Since I was most certainly the very last jackass to board the plane, I happily helped myself to the window seat and like a king in my kingdom spread out luxuriously with my carry-on easily accessible in the aisle seat next to me.
But there was trouble. Something was wrong at the gate. After some delay, it became evident there was late arrival holding up the flight. The door to the jet way had been closed, but the flight crew was reopening the door to let someone in.
Of course, down the aisle came the pushy butcher, spitting obscenities. Notably (thankfully) he was not carrying his bag full of swords. But again, his thirsty eyes locked in on me. I was sitting in his seat.
We were going to be neighbors, rubbing elbows for the next four hours and fifty-two minutes.
At the security gate at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport Jaclyn, our daughter and I had removed our shoes, belts, prostheses, hand grenades, and the remainder of our clothing and were patiently waiting to be called through the radiation chamber.
We were all standing in line there when a perfumed man, aggressively grinding away on a wad of spearmint gum, sauntered past the long queue of people.
It was difficult to not notice his outfit—his shirt was a starched blue button-down, half buttoned down with pinstripes and a bleach-white collar and cuffs. His white white cuffs were the old-fashioned kind, rolled back and pinned together at the hem with rhinestone cufflinks. This he’d chosen to contrast with a pair of pressed, rip-tasseled jeans which looked like he’d sat his ass in a bucket of sequins. It was a getup that reeked of over compensation up top, and down below, fiercely loyal, but dangerous.
He didn’t have any special pass. He wasn’t an airline employee. He wasn’t even late for a flight. He was just, a guy. Some guy who was above standing in line and working away on that wad of spearmint gum like he’d just got some disappointing numbers and needed to call somebody, STAT.
The rest of us had been standing in line patiently. We were not happy per se, but many of us were able to hold it together and respectfully shuffle along our stanchioned labyrinth. We had already disrobed and, in an orderly fashion, placed our clothes and dentures and whatnot in a large plastic bin which was then placed in a long line of everyone else’s plastic bins. But here comes this perfumed Chauncy and his sparkly rump like it was 2 o’clock on a Wednesday and pushed all our tubs back to make room for his bin at the mouth of the conveyor belt.
Everyone watched in frozen horror as he casually inserted himself into the front of the line.
While I’ve never been a fan of an airport’s security checkpoint, it’s hard not to admire how incredibly equalizing they can be. True, airports provide many amenities—concierge services, fast-pass security lines, luxury lounges, and, of course there’s the final bubble of priveledge, our airplane’s first class section, sparing many from the indignity of mingling with the coach crowd. But, in spite of these luxury features, everyone still has to take off their belt, remove their shoes, and pass through the same bowels of the TSA.
In the Universal Perspective, security checkpoints are an inconvenience on par with waiting for your food to be properly cooked or something else that is not an actual inconvenience but part of an average adult’s everyday life.
And still, even the short journey through security can have an explosive effect on so many people—like Minty McGlitterpants here.
I knew little about this man who’d just cut in line. There were the aforementioned red flags: the perfume, sequins and cartoonishly heavy jaws wildly masticating that poor sprig of spearmint. But it was not hard to guess he wasn’t the type who was made to suffer standing in line.
He was like a cork on a bottle of bothered champagne. The building pressure behind him was beginning to fizz over with audible sighs. Someone back there even said what the fuck.
Because I was only a couple people behind the cut, I felt like I was right in the middle of the action, and from this vantage point was able to notice the man throwing several furtive peripheral checks. Perhaps he was just as dependent (if not moreso) on everyone else’s good manners and aversion to confrontation, banking on a kind of herd mentality that would cause otherwise lively and opinionated folks to freeze up and, you know, just kind of wish other people could just hold it together and be normal. Don’t be weird. At least act normal, if not to spare oneself from making a crazy spectacle of oneself, then at least for a common courtesy to one’s countrymen.
But where our common courtesy was implied, he saw opportunity. He probably took one look at this line at the airport and saw a gaggle of automatons all clinging desperately to some non-binding agreement we get through this simple pre-requisite checkpoint with a semblance of casualty and as little drama as possible.
Rather than stand and wait his turn, he pushes past all these pathetic social taboos we’ve all come to know and love. He presumes any bystanders would either be too shocked or too meek to offer a substantial challenge.
I’m not sure I remember accurately what happened next.
I certainly remember emotions were running high—an effervescent tension had seized its way down our line. At first, I imagined raising my voice only a little, some polite request that he wait in line like the rest of us. I’d like to think everyone in line behind me would have my back.
Maybe calling him out would have the potential to spark a movement.
Maybe it would ignite its own hashtag!
And maybe it would escalate into an argument in a Federally regulated checkpoint.
And maybe that was the point.
We don’t fly overseas often. In fact, this vacation might be the only time we’ll use our passports in their ten-year lifespan. I’m aware of how inexperienced I am with overseas travel so I made many preparations to ensure we’d encounter as little turbulence as possible. But in all our carefully laid plans, I made two critical oversights.
I neglected to scour the fine print of our rental car contract. Also, I’d woefully underestimated (as did Dollar Rent-A-Car) the sheer number of people who, like us, thought Europe would be a lovely place to visit in the summertime.
Our flight had been very long. Our daughter had been hot and fussy the whole time. We arrived tired, but excited to see Germany. We’d heard good things. In spite of a checkered past, Germany’s Yelp page was brimming with glowing reviews. However, our enthusiasm was almost instantly dashed when we clapped eyes on the swarming hordes buzzing around the kiosks for car rentals.
The crowds were incredible! We were having a helluva time navigating a path through the melee with our clumsy luggage, and our jetlagged daughter, bolting this way and that. The Germans probably have a word for that: scheissegroupenfahrten, or something.
The most impressive detail to this scene was the sheer imbalance in the ratio of customers to clerks. At the eye of the hurricane was our rental company, Dollar, whose customers, along with those renting from Budget and Hertz, were split between only four haggard-looking clerks. The only thing separating the clerks from a solid wall of impatient, bloodthirsty travelers was a thin nylon ribbon, strung between two stanchions.
The place was a powder-keg.
I took a number: D-326. The number displayed on the big screen prompter read D-304. There were twenty-two people ahead of us. That was a lot, but considering the crushing crowd of people, it still seemed suspiciously low. I took a guess at how long twenty-two rental transactions would take—the estimate seemed grim, but maybe not terrible.
Also, there was no other choice so, whether it was an hour or four hours, it was what it was.
But then I noticed one of the clerks finishing up with their customers—two newlyweds. The woman was wearing a tiara. They seemed very eager to begin their honeymoon but I wondered, at what point after your wedding do you take off the tiara? The clerk wrapped up their paperwork and bade the couple a happy vacation. As the newlyweds left, the clerk pressed a button, changing the number on the prompter. Instead of the next number, D-305 (the “D” stood for Dollar Rentals), the reader changed to H-289, the next number for the next company, Hertz.
This meant there were not just twenty-two people between us and the current position, there were (presumably) an equal number of people waiting for Hertz and Budget rentals, expanding our wait by times three.
With this realization, the floor gave out.
On the plus side, we might not even need a rental car, since, by the time our number came up, our vacation would be over.
I took this unpleasant news back to Jaclyn who’d set up camp in a far corner at the edge of the teeming crowds. She’d resourcefully arranged our bags into a protective barrier against the shuffling, pushy travelers. I reported what I’d seen, and offered my best revised guess at how long we’d be waiting.
Jaclyn’s response was just about what you’d expect—even though we were trying to not swear around our daughter—she said, “Well, fuck.”
Europeans, from what I could tell, don’t believe in drinking fountains. At least the concept of public hydration had not yet taken root at the Munich airport. Along with our meager water rations, our patience had long since dried up. So when our daughter really started to lose it, we all began causing a scene.
I thought of our friends back home.
When hearing of our trip, they were surprised that we’d be traveling with our daughter, who was almost three at the time.
“Oh?” they said, eyebrows raised. “You’ll be traveling, with your daughter?”
Maybe it wasn’t ideal, but the kennels were all full-up, so, what are you going to do?
“Well,” said all of our friends. “When you return from your trip, I want your full report—what it’s like traveling with a small child.”
I considered how I might summarize and report on languishing in this special hell on the brink of mental and physical exhaustion. We gave our very last fuck moving our caravan of luggage to a sparsely populated food court where, if we were going to experience a family crisis, at least we could sequester ourselves from the prying, judging eyes of passersby.
But even in the food court there was a man who was openly watching us. He’d been eating there in the food court, but had long since finished his meal. He was ignoring both his phone and newspaper and, instead, just watched us. Like you’d watch television. Or a freakshow.
Having given up on parenthood, I watched as my daughter swam around on the floor of a main walkway in a hub of international travel. She was in tears and screaming, but for how long? It seemed like a waiting game. I decided the best thing to do was to just wait for the child to burn out. But the child never slowed her roll, not even momentarily.
Hours later, our number came up.
The clerk gave us a polite greeting and took our rental agreement.
How was she able to stay friendly? In this crowd? It was a mystery.
As she looked over our paperwork, flipping through the many pages we’d printed off, she narrowed in on a detail in the agreement. Her sunny mood turned grave.
There was a problem with the rental agreement.
“No no,” I said urgently. “Everything should be fine here.”
But buried in the fine print of our contract, in teeny tiny writing, was a very important caveat: only those in possession of a gold or platinum credit card were allowed to rent their car with a waiver for insurance.
This was a roundabout way of saying our rental agreement was worthless. While we had insurance, we had no proof of insurance, only a waiver.
Redundantly, I asked the clerk, “Is proof of insurance mandatory?”
She looked at me a little frustrated. Her expression indicated it was questions like these, compounded by everyone who came across her desk, which was the cause of the massive lines.
She said flatly, “Insurance is mandatory.”
Noticing that the situation was quickly getting away from me, I tried desperation.
“But I have insurance.” I said.
“You have a waiver for insurance.” she said.
Somehow, all this bad news was even worse when delivered with a German accent.
“How much,” I asked. “Would it cost to purchase insurance?”
She looked horrified that I would even ask such a thing. She tapped out the calculations on her computer. She said “Thirteen hundred and forty-two Euro.”
“Hmm,” I said, panicking. “And in dollars, that exchanges to?”
The clerk said, “More.”
In spite of delivering this awful bit of news, the clerk was both apologetic and professional. She gave me a small list of challenges and puzzlers I’d need to accomplish in order to secure a rental:
Get a SIM card and a German phone plan (something I knew we’d have to do, but hoped to accomplish after we left the airport).
Call the third-party group who set up the rental and explain the situation (it was 1:00 AM their time).
Put the representative from the third party in contact with someone at our credit card company.
With the third party acting on our behalf, and in partnership with our credit card company, produce a waiver for the rental insurance.
Once the waiver was complete, re-submit our updated rental agreement to the Munich office for Dollar rentals.
After the Munich office received the updated rental agreement, come back and we’ll try this again.
“After that,” said the clerk, “don’t worry about standing in line again.”
“I don’t have to stand in line again?” I asked hopefully.
The clerk promised I would not need to wait through the line a second time—an offer I eagerly, but skeptically accepted.
I wanted to confirm, “You’ll remember me when I come back?” I asked.
She nodded, possibly regretting her decision. In her dry accent she said, “How could I forget?”
We gathered our bags and returned to our spot in the food court.
The man at the food court folded his newspaper, happy to have something more interesting to watch.
Since I would likely never see them again, I said a long goodbye to my wife and daughter, and left to find a SIM card and a phone plan. A search that led me to an expensive looking boutique where the clerk was busy helping a group of eight people purchase phones and individual phone plans.
I would wait.
Their transaction was hard to watch—there was one man negotiating for himself and the seven nervous-looking women standing behind him. The details of each cellular plan were negotiated separately, and paid for, separately. This was all conducted by the man, who kept everyone’s credit cards and passports in a small bag. Rather than allow everyone to fill out their own cell phone application, which included all the information from their passports. He took his goddamn time filling out each plan himself.
As he was clearly busy with a small mountain of paperwork, I cut in line. Ignoring the chorus of protests from the group, I told the clerk in English, like an asshole, “All I need is a SIM card.”
My transaction took less than a minute, all the while this man and his seven traveling companions shouted at me in Arabic.
When I returned to the food court, my family was still there! But also, so was the watcher. He hadn’t lost any interest in our terrible family drama.
Just then, Lillian made a run for it.
Jaclyn chased after her. And I sat down to set up our foreign phone plan, following the German prompts as best I could.
Miraculously, I was able to get my phone working. I was equally astonished when someone actually answered my first phone call. The person on the other line was groggy but patient. After I explained the situation, they asked, “Did you read the fine print in your rental agreement?”
“Apparently,” I said. “Not close enough.”
“Well,” they said. “It says right there, only gold and platinum—”
I noticed the food court creeper was not only watching me, but was leaning in to hear my conversation.
Finally, I snapped at the man shouting, “What?!”
The man jerked to attention.
I hissed, “-the fuck are you looking at?!”
Flustered, the watcher got up, lumbered around his table to the other side and sat back down to face the other direction.
My outburst confused the person on the other line.
“Sir?” They asked. “I’m sorry?”
“Oh!” I said. “No, sorry, not you. It’s just this creeper—”
There was a pause on the line. Then, “I’m sorry. A creeper sounds, unfortunate.”
I half screeched, “You’re telling me!”
Eventually, amazingly, we were able to secure the updated paperwork for our rental. But when I returned to the car rental area, there were many more people waiting in line. Our camping spot in the corner now belonged to a caravan of Floridians.
The clerk I’d spoken with earlier was just wrapping up with her customer. She spotted me and gave an affirmative nod. I scuttled over to her desk amid a chorus of protests from the crowd. While I’d made a tacit agreement with the clerk to bypass the line, nobody else knew that.
Even though our transaction was very brief, there were several gasps and grumblings from the crowd which didn’t need translating: now I was the guy.
We’d rented a safety seat to go with the car. It was beyond filthy from the previous renters. There was actual food smashed and smeared over the entire cushion lining of the device. A bed of stale crumbs in the seat. Still, mechanically, we strapped it to the back seat of the rental. I poured in our furious daughter, snapping her in and, as she was thrashing against the straps, departed the airport for the hour and a half drive south to my sister’s house.
Outside the car was a beautiful drive.
We drove through Munich, a city I’d never seen. It is a beautiful city, I think. Then, with the airport growing smaller behind us, we leapt southward through the roiling forests of the Bavarian countryside on, praise be, a freeway with no speed limit.
Inside the car was another story. The damage had been done. Our daughter was hysterical and Jaclyn and I were officially finished.
About halfway through the drive we hit our limit and came to a skidding stop on a turnout from the freeway. There in the lush countryside we had a little roadside exorcism.
Our screaming daughter had managed to escape from her seat. Mysteriously, a rash had bloomed on her chest, but she was breathing evenly again, cooler now. She was still sweaty and still frantic but also calm again. Thirsty.
It was summer, but the air was crisp and ripe already with the approaching autumn. The breeze was heavy with earthen tones of pine, cedar, mushroom, stone, and old water. Across the freeway was a hillside of dense pine. I watched as the westward breeze silently threw itself against the evergreen wall. The rising wind seemed to pull water directly out of the hillside. From the countless treetops legions of ghastly tendrils gathered into long streams that oceaned into whirling low-lying blanket: heavy, gray, forgiving.
Conclusion
Thank you for listening to this episode of Don’t Remember Me Like This. I hope it is an episode you enjoyed. Please feel free to share this episodes with your friends on social media! If you like it, they might like it as well.
Until next time please, don’t remember me like this.
