Reagan National to Atlanta, Georgia.
And Back
Once again, I awoke at about 5:00 in the morning for a flight which was to leave at 11:30. As I had a half hour drive, I decided to get up and get going.
I dressed, packed, and went to the front desk to check out.
No one was there, so I said (in that sing-song way we do) "Hel-LO-ohhh!"
Still no one. I am, this will surprise you to learn, not shy. I found the door to the office; went in and toured the offices until I found the night clerk who was, of course, sound asleep.
She rallied, presented me with a bill for zero - I TOLD you I didn't watch movies - and I rolled out to the car.
Early Sunday morning radio in Atlanta is very, very tough. A lot of Jesus. A lot of citizen activists. A lot of country music.
Whew.
"Stay to the right in ... one point two miles."
Thank you, Nancy.
I pulled into the Hertz return area at 6:45 am. A Hertz return person did her magic and produced a slip which said I owed $55.35.
The listed weekend rate was $32.99 per day, unlimited mileage.
In figuring your prospective rental car charges here's my rule. Take the quoted rate-per-day. Double it.
In addition to the daily rate, there is a franchise tax, a fuel charge, an airport tax recovery fee, an it was cloudy last Tuesday when we thought it would be sunny add-on, and a business is a little slow so we're tossing this in unless you complain addition.
In this case I was a net winner. The charge should have been 66 bucks.
I rolled my luggage to the shuttle bus and got there just as I heard the air brakes being released. The driver saw me in his right outside mirror and he stayed put.
The bus was jammed.
I lugged up the three steps and said to the guy standing in the doorway with all of his stuff: "Call CNBC. The recession is over."
As we drove to the terminal, I looked out the window at the multi-acre parking lot. It was full of cars. As far as my eye could see in the early morning light.
I got off at the South Terminal where the Delta ticket counter is located. I couldn't remember what I did with the print-out of my itinerary, but I thought I would just get into the "First Class and Medallion Level" line and then go through security.
I found the lines everyone has been talking about. They're at the Delta ticket counter in Atlanta.
There was a ticket position with a sign above it that said, "Current day First Class and Medallion Only" and I stood in front of it. A man in a red coat came up to me and asked if I was First Class.
"Yes." I said, without irony nor acting like he should have known.
He pointed to a Disney-World-Length-Line and told me THAT was the "First Class and Medallion Level" line. I looked up at the signs above the ticket counters. There were about 15 which all said the same thing.
"All those people are Medallion?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then we ought to make it harder," I said as I got on the end of the line which snaked around, back and forth, and back, and forth five times from end to beginning.
All right. It's all for the travelogue. No problem. I, after all, have over four hours before my flight.
I trudge ahead and was about halfway to the front when some guy right near the front signaled to some other guy who ducked under the straps to meet his buddy.
It was his misfortune that he ducked in front of me.
I stepped in his way: "Hey, Sparky. Where do you think you're you going?"
"I'm going up there. He's holding my place."
"Did you have to go pee-pee or something?"
"I was returning the car."
"Tough," I said. He can join you back there," I said with the best thumb jerk I have done since my days as a substitute umpire at the McLean, Virginia Little League. "Everybody had to return a car." I may have added a one syllable word after "Tough" which started with the letter "s." I'm not sure.
Others in the line took my side. More people joined in with their opinion of line jumpers. It began to sound like the village revolt scene from a Frankenstein movie. All we needed were some long sticks, some matches and a gallows and we could have mounted a full torch-light parade of the peasants.
The guy in the red coat came running up to see what was going on. I kept my mouth shut and let a woman who was about three people behind me make our case. She did not sound anything like Nancy the Neverlost Lady. She shouted and pointed and, maybe, spit a little.
The guy in the front of the line, who obviously worked for Sparky, collected his own stuff and his boss' huge golf bag which he had been pushing with his foot for the past half hour and came around to the back.
A small victory. Some big shot thought he was going to be able to have his indentured-servant place-hold so he wouldn't have to waste his valuable time waiting in line.
Fool.
When I reached the front, the ticket agent asked me the Three Questions and told me that there was an 8:30 flight for which I can stand by instead of waiting until 11-something.
The 8:30 flight was leaving from gate E-39. So, he told me, was the 11:00 o'clock flight.
"Is there a Crown Room in the E Concourse?" I asked.
"It's the international terminal."
For those of you who read the India Adventures, you are already familiar with this concourse. So am I.
I took my boarding pass and headed for security.
The lines waiting to get through the x-ray machines and magnetometers were also very long. I searched for one which was not so long and spotted the line for people in wheel chairs and those needing special services.
That was me, I decided. Special.
I got in the line and waited as an elderly lady stopped, put everything on the ground, and searched through her 37 bags for her picture ID.
No problem. It's for the travelogue. Although it was now 7:30. My margin for error for the 8:30 flight was beginning to shrink.
I heaved a great sigh as we do when people do things which we wish they didn't do, like wait until all of their groceries have been scanned before they begin searching for their checkbook which happens just prior to their realization that they have brought the purse which does not contain the check cashing card requiring the approval of the store manager, the zone manager, the guy who grew the lettuce, and former Governor Tom Ridge.
The woman found the ID and she was allowed to pass to the x-ray machine.
I had all my stuff ready and breezed through. I have been through DCA, pal. I know. I ... know.
I put my things on the x-ray machine belt and walk through the magnetometer.
It beeps.
It's my docksiders.
The guy on the other side of the mag tells me to "stand over here."
No problem. It's for the travelogue.
While I'm moving "over here" another person asks if there is a computer in my briefcase.
"Yes."
"You have to take it out and put it on the belt separately."
"I do?" I remembered the woman at Reagan National took it out. I had forgotten.
I looked at the guy who was standing "over here." I needed to go back.
I took the computer out of the briefcase and walked through the magnetometer, the wrong way. It sounded like the shift change at the beeper factory.
Meanwhile my shoulder bag, my roll aboard, and my now-computer-less briefcase were sitting on the end of the x-ray belt with other bags stacking up against them like cars on an Iowa interstate in an ice storm.
The guy who was about to go through the magnetometer before I had to go back to put my computer on the x-ray machine belt sighed heavily.
"Don't start," I said. "I know that sigh. I perfected that sigh."
He shrugged. I walked back through the magnetometer which, of course, beeped again as I was still wearing my full-metal-jacket-docksiders-which-I-am-throwing-into-the-Potomac-River-the-minute-I-get-home.
The same guy says, "stand over here."
Arrrrggggghhhhhh.
Now my shoulder bag, my roll aboard, The guy started wanding me:
He wanded my right arm. It beeped.
"Can you identify that, sir?"
"It's a watch."
"Can you show it to me, sir?"
I pulled up my sleeve.
He wanded my waist. It beeped.
"Is that your belt buckle, sir?"
"It would either be that or the flashlight I had installed in my navel so I can see at night when I have to go to the bathroom." He was not amused.
"Would you turn your belt buckle over, sir?"
I did. It passed.
He wanded my shoes.
They beeped.
"They have metal in them. I don't know why docksiders need to have -"
"Thank you, sir." He walked away.
I went to get my bags from the end of the belt.
Another woman held up my briefcase. "Is this yours, sir?"
"Yes," I said with that little whine, and the shoulder drop that New Yorkers learn in first grade.
She carried it over to the table with the plastique detector and started pawing through it.
I grabbed my computer, my shoulder bag, and my roll aboard and followed her over. I put my computer on the table before it fell.
"Please remove that from the table, sir."
I rolled my eyes. And removed it from the table.
She opened all the zippers and pulled out a plastic cork screw I had stolen from some mini bar somewhere on the planet and had completely forgotten about.
She held it up like she had just captured the bouquet at the wedding-of-the-year.
A supervisor came over.
"Is this yours, sir?"
"It must be. It came out of my briefcase."
"You cannot take this on an airplane. Would you like it mailed to you?"
"No. Why don't you keep it and use it at the Christmas party?"
She smiled thinly and walked away.
For the purposes of this report I have emptied my briefcase and my shoulder bag. Herewith is the list of items:
Shoulder Bag:
Briefcase:
The point here is, there are enough electrical connectors, adapters, coiled wires, and batteries to star in an Irish Underground movie. Only the $1.25 cork screw got their attention.
I went down the escalator to the "Transportation Mall" and got on the train to take me to Concourse E.
- Cell phone
- Hands free adapter for a cell phone (long wire)
- Small bottle of nitroglycerine tablets
- Small flashlight
- Three ball point pens (two stolen from the Crown Room; one from an unknown source)
- Palm Pilot (model m500 - I didn't think the color model was worth the extra hundred bucks)
- One metal and plastic lapel pin in the shape of a tree with the letters "SC" beneath. No idea.
- One audio tape (sides 7 & 8) of Lawrence Block's "Hit List"
- One audio tape (tape two) of Rex Stout's "The Red Box"
- One Sony Walkman
- One set of earphones
- Another small flashlight
- Adapter for plugging earphones into airline audio system
- IFB (that thing that you see in people's ears on TV so they can hear what Geraldo is saying to them) which is made up of a plug, a long wire, and a thing like the Secret Service wears)
- Package of replacement cartridges for a Waterman fountain pen
- Passport.
- Four triple-A batteries
- Sharpie for writing the room number on the plastic card that opens the door of your hotel room because I can never remember the number and I refuse to waste a single brain cell on the issue
- An eyeglass repair kit that I didn't know I had
- Two Sony laptop computer system recovery CDs
- A flat metal tool I can't identify
- One GPS receiver for use when Hertz has no cars with Nancy the Neverlost Lady
- A pack of cards identifying me as a frequent flyer, buyer, or guest at about a dozen organizations held together with a binder clip
- One audio tape (tape three, Rex Stout's "Murder by the Book" which I have already listened to)
- A cell phone charger
- ANOTHER (and much higher quality) cork screw which includes a bottle opener AND a small serrated knife which I have now permanently removed from my briefcase
- ANOTHER pack of replacement cartridges for a Waterman fountain pen
- A box of curiously strong Altoids
- Four more ball point pens
- A microcassette recorder for recording great thoughts when I'm driving but, when I'm driving I can never reach my briefcase, so I forget
- A power adapter for a laptop which you can use either on an airplane (if they have the in-seat power supply which they never do) or in the cigarette lighter of your car (in case you have to type while you're driving because you can't reach the microcassette recorder in your briefcase
- A cable for an Ethernet connection
- Pancake make-up for when I have to do TV from the road and there is no make-up person (or when I just want to feel pretty)
- A CD case holding a variety of audio and computer CDs and a collection of DVDs for use when driving and I can't think of anything to type but the computer is plugged into the cigarette lighter just sitting there
- A bottle of Visine
- Two adapters to connect a PS/2 mouse to the USB port of a computer
- One coiled 25 foot telephone cord
- One telephone cord female to female connector
- One Ethernet cord female to female connector
- One lapel pin with a white "W" on an orange background about a thousand of which Annie Presley and I scored for the inaugural
- The October 2001 Discover Magazine
- A copy of "Enemy Within" by Robert K. Tanenbaum
- A Fed Ex envelope filled with about 50 copies of the flier announcing my availability to be a paid speaker which I always forget to give out.