I arrive at airports early enough to accommodate backlogs of customers at the ticketing counter, snafus in the TSA inspection line or gate changes that force me to run from one end of the airport to the other.
So I had plenty of time the day I left LAX for DFW on Wednesday. (For the uninitiated, that is Los Angeles to Dallas Fort-Worth.)
I had plenty of time to walk the corridor while my phone app counted my steps toward the ideal of 10,000 steps a day. I wove my way in and out of waiting areas, walked around clusters of waiting customers and checked out menus at the airport restaurants.
As I wove my way around another cluster of chairs, I encountered a thin woman lifting a thick, hard cover book as she danced back and forth. “Getting your exercise in while you wait?” I asked.
“Yes. I usually have a trainer but I can’t go to the gym today,” she hoisted the book over her head. “I am making up my own exercises today.”
“That’s why I am walking. I read a report on a year-long study of regular walking for back problems. They found that it does as much good for the back as the back exercises usually prescribed.”
“Oh, I know a good exercise for that. It is this yoga pose,” she said and promptly dropped to the ground to show me the same exercise a couple of professionals have demonstrated to me.
I watched, smiled and asked her about something else until she needed to go to line up for her flight.
With plenty of time before I had to leave, I walked the length of the terminal a couple more times. I checked my phone. I had 5,000 steps. I would save a few for the layover.
I found a seat in the rapidly filling waiting area for flight 2442 and pulled out a tiny cross stitch project I figured I could complete before I reached home.
A beefy man turned into our area looking for a seat. I moved my luggage away from an empty seat. He flopped down, “I just got in from five months in Antarctica. I am going home to see my son and wife in Alabama.”
“Antarctica? Really! I just read Admiral Byrd’s ‘Alone’ about his time at the studying the weather at the south pole,” I said.
He knew the history. The island has become quite populated and modern since then. This fellow passenger had spent the past five months supervising the water purification system. He said he felt hot – he had gotten used to Antarctica’s summer temperature of 27 degrees below 0.
I shook my head in disbelief – I felt cold at 27 degrees above.
Our flight started to board. He lined up. I waited. With back issues and tight plane seats, I am in no rush to squash myself into a sitting position any sooner than I absolutely must.
The stewards closed the door and we fastened our seat belts. Then they told us the plane had elevator problems. We waited while the mechanic tried the 15 minute fix, decided it needed a new part and waited on the part. The repair would take an hour. Passengers with connecting flights asked to leave to make changes. The door opened to allow them to exit and re-book. The part did not work. The flight was cancelled.
I joined the lengthy line of 200 or so looking to re-book. An agent handed out slips of paper and said, “call this 800 number. We only have one booking agent at the desk right now.”
I called and was immediately told I had a flight for 3:30. After a couple of glitches, I re-booked. Because I obviously would miss my connection to El Dorado, I got an extension to Little Rock (LR). On the advice of a staff member, I went to another gate and received a boarding pass. While others waited on the harried agent at the re-booking desk, I began walking. I had four or five hours of airport time ahead of me.
I walked until I had 8,000 steps, then sat down with the needle work and began counting stitches.
A harried little lady chatted on her cell phone about our cancelled flight and the rude, inconsiderate agents and stewardess. She hung up and plopped down beside me.
“Excuse the pajama bottoms,” she said.
Me, the fashion unconscious, had thought she was wearing pin-stripped slacks.
“When I sat down on that plane my seat was wet. They brought another one but I needed dry clothes.” She regaled me with the tale of agents who snubbed her request for help before they did one thing. They went to lost and found and returned with the pajamas, “She said ‘here is the largest pair of pajamas I could find. They are stretchy so I think they will fit you.’” the woman sniffed, still quite insulted. She was not overweight or even tall.
We had plenty of time before our planes left. We talked and I stitched. She told me about her mother’s mild stroke and then her massive, fatal stroke 10 years later. “I turned her face toward me and I knew,” she said.
We talked about accidents and family. We talked about death and dying and how family members responded. As I neared finishing the little piece of cross stitch I looked at the time, “I think you need to go. Your flight will be boarding soon.”
I had another half hour before I had to join the queue for my flight.
Everything went smoothly. I landed in DFW, walked quickly to my connecting flight to LR and finally tallied 10,000 steps. My husband met me at the escalator in Little Rock.
Only my luggage failed to cooperate. It missed the flight to LR. The airport delivered it to our house on Friday and life returned to normal.
(Joan Hershberger is a staff writer for the News-Times. Email her at joanh@everybody.org.)