These Are The Memories That Made Me A Wealthy Soul

After years of experiencing few if any difficulties while traveling, 2006 has not been a banner year for me. It started in January with a day turning into a night of hell in Houston trying to get to Chihuahua, Mexico. Then, in July, I had an unplanned detour to Gander, Newfoundland on my flight from Amsterdam to Minneapolis.

When this last Thursday dawned, I was expecting a fairly routine day of travel. Check out of the hotel in Veenendaal, The Netherlands, drive to the Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, drop off my rental car, and check in for my 1pm flight back to Minneapolis. The traffic to Schiphol wasn't too bad and by 10am I had returned my car and was ready to check in. So far , so good.

After using the self-service kiosk to print my boarding pass, I went to check my luggage and noticed that the flight was denoted as "delayed" on the status screen. Oh well, I can always kill a little time at the airport, especially one with the amenities of Schiphol, I thought.

When the KLM agent punched up my info at the baggage check, she informed me that my flight was delayed. "I know," I responded, "How long is the delay anyway?"

She paused for an instant before blurting out, "Tomorrow. It looks like your flight is delayed until tomorrow."

Tomorrow? TOO-MAH-ROW? What the hell do you mean TOMORROW!?!?

"Really?"

"Yes, I can book you on the flight tomorrow at 9am and then you can take a shuttle to a hotel..."

Great. Just frickin' great. A whole bleepin' day at the bleepin' airport hotel in Amsterdam.

"...or because you have elite status I could try to book you on another flight today..."

Hal-a-freakin-lujah! There is hope! I just about jumped over the counter.

"Yes, please see if you can get me on another flight today."

After a couple of calls, she informed me that I was booked on a flight from Amsterdam to Washington Dulles and then to Minneapolis. I had to go back and get a new ticket from KLM, but this agent came along with me and made sure that I went to the front of the line (passing up some other poor slobs who had just discovered the news about their flight to Minneapolis). She did a fantastic job in a very difficult situation and epitomized customer service.

When I got my tickets, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I would be flying business class to D.C. Our company only allows you to fly business class if the flight is over eight hours. Minneapolis to Amsterdam is right around that and, unless you can scam an upgrade, you always fly coach. Getting business class on the this flight was a much needed ray of sunshine on a otherwise gloomy day.

Not only did I have a bidness class seat, I didn't have anyone sitting next me. Bonus. Perhaps a little karma was at play. A couple of Scotches, a couple of glasses of red wine, a pretty decent meal (especially by airline standards), some reading, and a much needed nap later we began our descent. After a rough start, the day was turning out to be okay after all.

Then I arrived at Dulles. I realize that the airport is under construction (what airport isn't) and someday it will be a paradise for the weary air traveler, but right now its pretty much a hellhole. The unpleasantness began immediately after leaving the aircraft when we were shuffled onto these oversized people-moving contraptions that seemed more at place in the drab dystopian future of "Soylent Green" than the United States of America in 2006. They looked like East German subway cars placed on the frames of giant dump trucks. I could only imagine the negative impression that first time visitors to the United States were getting. Maybe all that talk of George Bush's police state wasn't an exaggeration after all.

After a tolerable wait to clear immigration and customs, I emerged at the main terminal and encountered the security line. It snaked and stretched through the terminal like the lines of British troops waiting to get picked up from the beaches of Dunkirk, except that the Tommies were much more orderly and less panicky. It was a nightmare. Video monitors flashed ominous Department of Homeland Security warnings about liquids and gels, while harried TSA agents strode up and down the line hectoring the crowd about being ready to go through security. "Take out your laptops!" "Put you liquids and gels in a plastic bag!" "If its more than three ounces, throw it away!" It seemed a trifle absurd since it would be a good forty-five minutes since we would get anywhere near the checkpoints.

The fact that five years have passed since 9/11 and we still can't get our airport security shiite together is a damning indictment of the failure of the DOHS bureaucracy. Encountering an excruciating airport experience in Moscow is somewhat understandable. The Russians have been beaten down by seventy years of communism and now suffer under Putin's kleptocracy. But this is the United States of America. We're the leaders of the free world. You can't tell me that we can't figure out a way to get travelers through airport security without being subjected to the hassles and degradations of the current process. The first thing that I would do if I ran the DOHS would be to ask the good people from Disney to come in an teach my employees the basics of customer service. Because at this point, they don't have a clue.

Like a painful kidney stone, I eventually passed through the security checkpoint. Then, after a three-and-a-half mile walk, I reached the concourse where my flight would depart from. And I have to admit that it was pretty nice (as opposed to the main terminal). I sampled a few brews from the Old Dominion brewery and killed a couple of hours before my flight to Minneapolis, which thankfully turned out to be uneventful.

By the time I got home and laid head to pillow, nearly twenty-four hours had passed since I woke up in The Netherlands. Regular travel teaches you a lot of things--none more than the power of patience--and this trip provided another valuable lesson: avoid Dulles at all costs.