Last Day of Trip

Day 19, September 19

At 5 am we got ready, rode the "lift" to the front desk, checked out, and sat in the now quiet courtyard. Two German ladies with luggage showed up followed by two more couples. We had booked the 6 am shuttle and could not afford to take the one an hour later. As we sat there two ladies of the evening staggered toward the van laughing and talking loudly until one bent over the bushes and puked. She wiped her mouth and staggered on obviously still under the influence of a foreign substance, probably alcohol. Hoping they didn't plan on using our shuttle, sitting next to us, breathing tobacco breath on us, puking on us, having STD's jump on us, they passed by and staggered into the hotel ready for business or sobering up, whatever. If a fight for seats ensued we had the ace in the hole, just our backpacks. A huge taxi pulled up which I thought was not our transport as we had come in a hotel van upon arrival. However, after the driver checked inside he said something in German (my college class failed me again) and the other 6 people made a bee line for the luggage compartment. Lee and I proceeded directly to "GO," calmly walked over to the door, and got in. Twenty minutes later we wandered the huge terminal looking for the Air India check in counter. After 20 more minutes walking through halls A, B, and C twice we found the check in and proceeded to the gate. Off in a corner by itself a stream of Indians had unloaded from the plane whose starting point was New Delhi, and entered the terminal holding area to reboard. Four hundred and some odd people crowded into the 10,000 square foot gate area. At the last check before entering, a small Indian woman in front of us gave the aging, constipated, no smile, male agent a bogus boarding pass. He asked her where she got it, and she pointed at another woman. "Please step aside." We never saw her again, but she may have entered the horde without our knowledge. Entering gate 6 the packed sealed room jolted the senses. Picture if you will a cemetery courtyard of an insane asylum packed with clients on Halloween, Friday the 13th, with a full moon at the stroke of midnight. The only other time I have heard such a cacophony of mind numbing, nerve searing, emotional sobbing, screaming, yelping, screeching, and farting occurred when I received the Air India fish lunch. The scene took me back to our trip to India in 2001 waiting in the airport lounge over night listening to awful Indian music on the black and white 13 inch TV as bodies lay sleeping all over the concrete floor, zombies peering in the window from the 48 degree cold outside, and trying to rest while waiting for our delayed flight to Nepal, what a bad travel experience.
Back to gate 6, the mob of people seemed to be families with young children, never a good sign on a packed airplane. From the second we walked into the waiting area, the cacophony of mind numbing, nerve searing, emotional sobbing, screaming, yelping, screeching, and farting never stopped or diminished. After first class, business class, families with small children (98 % of the plane), economy class rows 40-52, 30-52, 20-52, we finally got the call to board and found 18 J,K just 2 rows behind business class, a good thing we thought. However, one row behind business class and directly in front of us the row faced the bulkhead wall which the airline reserved for families needing bassinets for the kids who scream in pain on take off and landing because of the ear popping change in air pressure. The crew had also given a pretest to find the most obnoxious children in the world and these ranked in the 99th percentile. The only time they took a break from howling came for a couple of hours when the middle of the night in India made them sleep. None had pacifiers, nor did parents discourage them from their ridiculous roar. The youngest needed a boob, bottle, binky, or butt swat in whatever combination worked. The toddlers needed a swat to get their attention and then successive swats until they sat still and shut up. If you are upset, quit reading, and by the way, YOU are part of the problem. The little monkey in front of us climbed up and around his seat managing to grab Lee's head phones. Across the aisle and one row up a girl about 4 years old in a wild purple sequined leotard number screamed until she got her way, 30 separate times. In our row on the opposite side of the plane the baby screamed constantly unless mom lifted her sari and stuck a nipple in its mouth. Don't worry, no one wanted to look as mommy closely resembled a Berkshire sow feeding a litter.
On a positive note I saw a few movies that passed the 8.5 hour trip. At O'Hare we caught the Van Galder bus at terminal 5, rode to Rockford, called Jock, and spent the afternoon with well behaved grandchildren who know the value of a good swat.
Want to read more DonKey drivel? Go to Amazon Books and search for "Four Keys Overseas."

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