In Which Miss Jill Benefits From A First Class Catfight

I’m at the airport right now because I’m going to Chicago for Spring Break. My landlady/friend/secretary from school and I encountered various obstacles on the way to the airport, including an arduous showdown with the Korean dry cleaning woman, an Uzbek girl with a fist full of cash and hundreds of bottlenecking Brooklynites. It was a fiasco of international proportions.

When I finally got to the airport, they informed me that it was too late to board with my luggage. I asked if my luggage could take the next plane, but I was denied because the employee said that safety regulations required that it stay with me (??????) The last time that I missed a flight was in Managua when the rental car employees didn’t come to work, so we missed our flight while waiting to return the keys.

I waited sadly in line until I finally found myself facing an employee sporting neon blue eye decals. She shook her head as her acrylics gracefully tapped the computer keyboard. She eyed the tiny bag in my hand and said, “If you can move everything from your suitcase into your carryon bag, we can still get you on this flight.” My carry on was big enough to fit two books and my laptop. I am not a light packer. I stared at her incredulously as she slowly became enraged by my lack of cooperation. “If you don’t do it, you can’t go. “ “It’s impossible,” I replied. She sighed, “Someone else gots to be dealing with you, cuz it be break time.”

“Uhhhhh…”

“Maybe we can get you on at 4:45, but probably not. You can’t afford to go tomorrow, so it will have to be Monday.”

Although she was correct, I’m not sure how she could so confidently gauge my financial situation, especially since, like all of my arch nemesis, she was wearing drug store press on nails (not that I am above this-I recognized them for a reason-but at least I never choose the beach scene ones). She said something undecipherable and the employee next to her interjected, “That ain’t the airline policy.” What proceeded went something like this:
“How you be tellin’ me no airport policy. I have four years experience in the industry.”
“I have five. You don’t know nothing about nothing. You seen how I be treating the customers.”

Stands up and starts gesticulating wildly. “Excuse me? Don’t you be disrespecting me-that’s unprofessional, as far as I’s (not sure how to spell this) concerned.”
With rapidly increasing volume, “Don’t you be disrespecting me and my experience in the industry.”

“I be treating customers right, and it’s my break time. Nobody talks to me like this, believe me, nobody.”

I just wanted to go home and suddenly lost control and started crying from frustration. At this point in my life I only cry two or three times a year, so all of those pent up emotions can get rather loud. It must have been an illuminating scene for the passengers behind me: two out of three of the workers were engaged in a loud screaming match, as a mysterious, yet intriguing, blond woman was sobbing loudly. Another employee ran up and tried to break them up, to no avail. From time to time, one of them would turn to me and punctuate their argument with, “Now, don’t you be cryin’.” I tried futilely to stop, because I was pretty sure that I was about to see a deweaving ©, but I couldn’t.

The remaining worker, John I., paused from booking a last minute flight to Tel Aviv for two women in furs and gestured that I come over. He asked, “Aisle or window?”

“Window,” I wailed. “I’m sorry that I’m hysterical.”

“They shouldn’t be yelling like that. Here is your ticket.” I glanced down. 2D, First Class.