I had a very, very long day today. It started this morning in Raleigh, North Carolina. We flew from Raleigh to Dulles to Greensville to Dulles to Philadelphia and back to Dulles. My hope was to get back to DC in time to catch a flight to Dallas so that I could meet up with my family. I got in just in time…to miss the last flight to Dallas. With the cost of hotels being what they are, and me being without a bed here in DC, I scrambled to find a place to stay. To no avail; I could not find a place. I was going to be doomed to walk to concourses of America’s worst planned airport for the entire night. I even called crew tracking to volunteer to go back to work some place else just so I that I could have a hotel. There was no open time available.
But not all hope was lost. As I walked out of the crew room, obviously somewhat distraught, a fellow pilot said to me, “Do you know about the abandoned room on the ‘D’ concourse?” Of course I didn’t know about it. If I did, I would have already been there sleeping. He gave me the code to the room, and I hiked the fifteen miles over to the D concourse. When I arrived, I tried the code on the door; it didn’t work. So I knocked. No one answered. I turned to leave when a flight attendant answered the door. “Come on in,” she said with a smile. I smiled back and walked in.
There I saw scores, nay hosts, nay multitudes of black leather recliners with no one sitting in them. “Ah, I’m home,” I thought. The next order of business was to get out of my uniform, and into some casual clothes. So I quickly darted out of the room with my suitcase and across the hall I went to get changed in the bathroom. I raced to the handicapped stall; it has more room. There were a few regular bathroom noises going on. The odd squeak and stall doors closing and latching. Faucets turned on and off. Paper towel rolls were torn. You know, the usual. I took off my lanyard with my ID. I took off my tie, then my shirt, then I opened my suitcase and grabbed a t-shirt. I put that on and then I went to grab my jeans. As I bent over to put them on I noticed the shoes of the person in the stall next to me.
“Hmm,” I thought to myself, “I don’t know many men who where golden spike heals with an open toe. He must have gotten a pedicure recently.”
GASP!
I quickly peered between the crack between the door and the stall wall. “Where are the urinals?” My heart raced. “Awe shit!” I pulled my jeans up and tossed everything else into my suitcase. Hang the fact that my shirt and pants would get wrinkled, I was in a foreign land without a passport!
I opened the stall door, and poked my head out. Save for the lady in the stall next to mine, the coast looked clear. I darted for the door. At the last second, there was a young woman there who caught me going out. She had been the one making the other sounds in the bathroom. She gave me a “GASP” and I gave her an, “awe hell.” She laughed so loudly at me that when I finally escaped the womens’ restroom, everyone in the D concourse saw me.
Good times here in DC. Let me tell you.
