Waiting for my future...

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NOTE: This stupid site is not allowing me to upload more pictures. Will try again on campus.

I said goodbye to Jared and walked towards my future in Japan. He hadn’t been kidding a few moments before when he said that this terminal was awesome: huge vaulted ceilings, lengthy kiosks, and best of all, the place was deserted. Flying on a Wednesday has its perks, I see. I “strolled leisurely” (meaning I was just barely keeping my composure, forcing myself to keep down that sickly nervous feeling in my stomach) to the Korean Air counter and was quickly summoned over by one of the fifteen Korean ladies in matching shiny white blouses, long black skirts, and turquoise ties. Her calming attitude was slightly lost on me. She started asking me questions that I wasn’t used to these flight counter people asking me: “Do you have your passport?” and “Would you like a frequent flyer card?” were easy enough, I guess, but then “Do you have a laptop in your checked luggage?” and “Is that a guitar?” hit me and, it sounds stupid, but I literally didn’t know what to do. Put yourself in my shoes. I’m absolutely terrified, I’ve just said goodbye to the last friend’s face that I will see for a long while, and I just have no idea why this very nice lady is asking me if I have a laptop or if my guitar-shaped bag is a guitar. Even as I’m writing this I realize it was stupid, but I just sputtered and mumbled and somehow managed to nod feebly. She pretended that I had just very coherently answered and handed me the form to fill out for the frequent flyer card with a generous smile. I put the pen to the paper, and only when I was halfway done did I realize I had been rushing and shaking so badly that my handwriting was almost illegible.
‘I’m a mess.’ I thought. ‘I’m still in Los Angeles and I’m already a wreck.’
I took two deep breaths and collected myself, everything went smoothly, and I got out of there with only minor scars to my self-confidence. Eventually I found Security, after wandering around through restaurants and once being so embarrassed that I had reached a dead end that I went into the bathroom just to pretend that that’s what I’d been looking for all along. Standing there, relieving myself, I had the distinct feeling that all of my previous experience flying domestically out of LAX’s other terminal was only serving to disorient me and lead me places that I would otherwise have no reason to go. I had only hit the dead end because I had gone up the stairs in the main lobby: In every other airport I fly to domestically, I go up stairs to get to the gates, that’s just what I do. I only got flustered by the check-in attendant’s questions, because when I’m checking in domestically, I only ever get asked for my ID!
I’m already learning from very inconsequential interactions just how different this trip will be.
Anyway, Security. I put my bags in the x-ray machine, I got through the metal detector, and then they put me in what seemed to be a people-sized x-ray machine, where I had to hold my arms up and make a triangle with my thumbs and pointer fingers. Also different.
Standing there afterwards, waiting to be admitted to get my stuff, the TSA security guard gave me one of those smirks with a eye roll that seemed to say “I’m guessing you’ve done this before, doesn’t it suck that we have to be this strict about everything” while simultaneously saying “It also sucks that we have to racially profile and give this Japanese woman ahead of you hell by frisking her worse that LAPD on a bad payday, but hey, what can you do, RIGHT?!”. I gave her a smirk back that hopefully said “I’m sorry that you feel like you have to do that, and why yes, I have done this before, have a nice day” but may have been read as “Ha, silly foreigners, right!? I wish this woman would just hurry up!”, because the TSA agent looked back at her and smiled again.
Either way, after the smirk, she said “I don’t have to frisk you, right? You don’t have anything to hide?”, giving me a wink that legitimately made her question rhetorical, like she really was going to treat me differently than this Japanese woman ahead of me. Now I didn’t want to be frisked, but something snapped in me thinking that this TSA person was going to let me get off scot-free, and I wanted to make this woman uneasy with her decision. To quote Mike Birbiglia, what I should have said, was nothing.
What I did say was “You’d be surprised.” I realized I shouldn’t have said anything as the words tumbled out of my mouth, and as it lingered between us in the air I gave her this nervous look, like “How much am I fucked right now?”
Surprisingly, she gave me the same nervous look back but let me through anyway! I was blown away. I mean, I have nothing to hide, but she still let me through without any hassle. As I stood near the conveyor belt waiting for my stuff to get scanned again (looked like the problem had been some combo of my laptop charger and A Feast for Crows, a very thick book), she kept giving me nervous looks as if she was contemplating whether or not she had made a huge mistake. Mission accomplished.
I’m sitting at my gate, gate 104, and since I’ve been writing this, I’ve seen that Japanese woman walk by in different directions 4 times. Weird.
I’m hungry, and I’m gonna get some expensive airport food.

Update! There’s a guy named Neil Armstrong on my flight. Just heard him called on the intercom.

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Photos

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Nicely dressed Korean ladies.