Apparently, I Am Distressed

Morning...

Well, here I am sitting at Schipol Airport in Amsterdam (which does seem a very odd way to go to America since I’ve just gone several hundred miles east, while aiming to go several thousand miles west. I said goodbye to my luggage in Glasgow. Who knows when I will see it again. All being well I will say a brief hello to it in Detroit, only for it to disappear en route to St Louis. Luckily, since my luggage goes missing at least 66% of the time, I am prepared. I have spare knickers in my carry on.

It was an inauspicious start to my trip to America – a)I forgot to take a book and b) the plane to Amsterdam smelled of sick. Luckily, to mitigate a) I have my Sony e-Reader on which I have about 200 books, so I knew I wasn’t going to run out of reading matter. However, there’s always that niggling doubt that they will have changed the rules on planes and no electronic equipment will be allowed, so I nipped into the airport bookshop and, luckily they had a book that I’ve been meaning to get for ages. Gordon Brown’s FALLING. (No, not that Gordon Brown, and it’s not about the state of the UK economy). To mitigate b) well, sadly there was nothing. The hour or so flight to Amsterdam was marred by the smell of vomit.

Schipol airport in Amsterdam is the size New York. My arrival gate from Glasgow and my departure gate for Detriot were about as far apart as it’s possible to get. Walking from one to the other is like taking a stroll from the Empire State Building to ooooooh, Newark, New Jersey. When I got to my gate, of course, there was a little sign up saying “Haha suckers, your gate has been changed. Please go to Gate E9.” It was then that I found myself in a strange Kafkaesque nightmare. I arrived at Gate E9 to be confronted by a screen saying “This gate has been changed. Please proceed to Gate E24.” “Gate E24?” I thought to myself, “That number seems strangely familiar.” Yes, indeed, it was the gate I had first been to. I passed the same confused looking people six times as we all meandered, with increasing perplexity, between Gate E9 and Gate E24.

I’ll tell you how far I walked between gates – I had to stop and go for a wee twice (not just in the middle of the concourse, I hasten to add. I made sure to go to the designated restrooms. Here, I was able to observe a phenomenon that has puzzled me since the advent of toilets that flush automatically. This type of toilet seems to spot me coming. No matter how carefully and slowly I open the cubicle door, the toilet flushes once on my entry into the cubicle. It then flushes a second time as I am hanging my handbag up on the cubicle door, a third time as I am...ahem...preparing myself. Then it flushes once more while I am...sorry to be indelicate...tinkling. After I’m done and stand up – ie, the time when it should flush, it doesn’t. I wave at it, point my bum at it, bob up and down a few times, still no flush. I give up, take my handbag off the back of the door and the toilet flushes. It flushes again when I open the cubicle door and then it gives me an enthusiastic farewell flush as I leave the cubicle.

The automatic taps on the sink are a whole other issue. They seem to think I am one of the undead. They never come on. No matter how much I wave in front of the little sensor. I could climb into the sink and start doing the hokey cokey and they would still remain obstinately dry.

So, here I am sitting waiting for the flight. I’ve been through the second round of security at Schipol. Now, they’re not too shabby on the security front at Glasgow airport, but here they’re fiendish. As usual, I beeped. I’m sure the woman who frisked me could now make a pretty good guess at my cup size. Honestly, I’ve been on first dates where I’ve been touched up less. (Dad – I’m sure you are reading this so I just wanted to say that I have never been touched up on a first date. In fact, I’ve never been touched up at all).

Later that same day...

By now, I am supposed to be in Illinois. Only I'm not. In a strange reversal of fortune my bags have gone on to St Louis. I, on the other hand am stuck in Detroit, in the hotel out of The Shining. The plane was late so I missed my connecting flight. I thought there was still a chance to catch it, as I have never been through customs and immigration so quickly - and that was despite having some more unusual questions thrown at me by the immigration official. Along with the usual 'where are you going?', 'how long will you be here?', 'whay are you here?' and 'who was the seventh president of the United States?' this time I also got 'what's wrong with your leg?' I wondered if this was a trick question and spent five minutes agonising over what to say. Could he see the scar where I fractured my knee when I was 13 even through the material of my trousers? If so, these are not immigration officials, they are superheroes. Should I say 'nothing' or should I make something up? Which one would get me deported?

In the end, I opted for the truth. "Nothing." I said.

"Then why do you have crutches?" he said.

Ah - now I had it. This was some sort of conversation where I had to respond with the secret code. Unfortunately, no-one had told me what the secret code was. I leaned towards him and tried a likely candidate "Errrrrr...the daffodils are blooming early in Prague, this year."

"Ma'am, do you have a mental illness?"

It turned out that he had thought my wheel-y carry on luggage was crutches. I wish I'd known that before I mentioned the daffodils.

Anyway, by the time we had got that little misunderstanding sorted out, and I had waited at the luggage carousel watching everyone else's luggage come off, the last flight to St Louis had gone, so the lovely people at Delta Airlines gave me a hotel voucher and vouchers for dinner and breakfast (what sort of breakfast am I going to get for $3 by the way?) and packed me off to a man waiting to take me to my home for the night.

"Are you a distressed passenger? he said.

"Well, not really. I'm a little bit miffed, but I wouldn't say I was distressed."

"No ma'am, that's what they call passengers who've missed their flights and need to stay overnight."

Oh. I see.

I seem to have written a whole lot about nothing at all. Sorry about that. Signing out for now, completely un-distressed but very sleepy.