TWENTY SEVEN: THE AIRPORT KERFUFFLE

I’ve always hated check in- the lines seem endless and the truckload of luggage people take for a trip?

You’d think they’d be leaving for a few years instead of a few months.

And talk about the sentimental goodbyes!

C’mon- they’re not going into space orbit, and even if they were, you’d think NASA would have developed some kind of advanced communication-cross-telekenetic powered device to beam people across the world to solve this problem.

So for these very obvious reasons, no one was with me when I left. I felt a little odd that I was taking a vacation when it wasn’t some sort of over-commercialized American public holiday, but I couldn’t deny that I was feeling a little smug as well when I knew all those stuck up snobs were bound in a nine to five totalitarian schedule.

‘Was’ is however, the operative word now, all because of something, I now call:

The Airport Kerfuffle

It had to occur, of course, while I was half a dozen people away from the check out counter, sandwiched between a swagman, (obviously, no one informed him that soap or body wash had been invented) and a redhead, (she obviously wasn't pro the clean air act, polluting the air with her two litre can of Schwharkopf hairspray).

So here I was, irritated while I cursed the slow moving line silently, when I hear a few sharp shrieks from behind me.

You’d think I would have been used to this, by now, and learned to ignore it, but no. I did an extremely stupid thing-

I turned around.

And this is precisely the moment when the ‘kerfuffle’ occurs.


I love my life, okay, but when the only thing I want to do is get IN and OUT of somewhere- lets just say; I get irritated to say the least.

Serves me right, I guess. I just sat there after Anabel left me, cold, sexually frustrated and half naked in that function room, and I ended up just staring at the friggin curtains blowing up like Marilyn Monroe’s white number in the ‘Seven Year Itch’.

But after a while, I actually began to think- so being the man that I am, I went back outside to reunite with my ol’ friends Scotch and Gin.

Everyone must have left, cos when I woke up at noon, the only person I found was Rory.

And that’s why I was trying to check in inconspicuously, with my shades pulled on, beanie pulled low, Rory by my side… and half a dozen butch looking guys watching my every move, after the press began to ‘stalk’ me, post article. (might add though, puke is not green as believed, but shit brown… well, mine anyway).

So for obvious reasons, check in didn’t QUITE go to plan as I hoped.

I must have just had my friggin’ ‘Backstreet Aura’ brightened or polished that day, cos I barely found the line before someone shrieked, a camera flashed, someone else screamed, and then I was pushed back by Jake, Quincy, Jared and Rory… lets just say, it was a friggin mess.

To make an extremely long story short, Quincy managed to cut his way through one of the many lines and shove my passport through to the counter chick, but then; it happened.

“ ’Scuse me!”

Urgh. That sharp tongue could only belong to one person.

And she just had to push through, didn’t she? The poor woman behind the counter seemed at her wits end when she slammed her passport on the counter.

“I want to know who died and made you God, cos if you can see here, Mr Superstar we ordinary folk need to check in too”

I grabbed her passport off the desk and slammed mine back on the counter. “McLean, Alexander James” I gritted as the stunned attendant recovered and processed the ticket.

I heard a gasp while she began to fume silently. Good. Let her suffer. I definitely had.

“Window or aisle, sir?”

“Window, up the front thanks”

“Any hand luggage, Mr McLean?”

“No”

She tapped a couple more keys before she returned my ticket with my passport.

Still cursing, still fuming.

“Okay Mr McLean your departure time for flight BF309 at 12:00pm, departure lounge, 11G. You should be at the departure lounge twenty minutes before boarding, so you should go through the next checkpoint”

“Thanks” I muttered before I grabbed the ticket. I could still feel her eyes burning into me, so in as much dignity as I could muster, I turned to her and looked her straight in the eye.

“You’ve screwed my career, now get lost”

No one, and no one messes with my career.

Not anymore.

 

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