Storytime: On Canada
I hopped in my Uber two and a half hours before my flight out of Montreal — hungover and out of sorts from a festival I had just attended that weekend — and was more excited to get home than I was to report to work the following morning. But, no matter, I had expected a decently unpleasant transition back into American adulthood after my brief Canadian stint. Remember that.
My driver reported that the ride would not, in fact, take the 20 minutes it was originally meant to but rather twice that due to “this country’s damn socialism” (in other words, roadwork). I took this in stride. I wasn’t exactly on time, but I wasn’t late yet either, and if you know me at all you know this is a state in which I inexplicably thrive. After some small talk featuring Florida Russians and the alleged health benefits of poutine, I arrived to the airport an hour before my flight. Brilliant.
I was checked in. I hadn’t lost my passport. Could this be self-reliance? Was this responsibility?
I made it to the front of the security line, bags already distributed to bins and shoes preemptively off, and flashed the guard my newly mature and capable smile. She was unimpressed. “Ticket and ID,” she muttered in my general direction. Pulling (okay, yanking) my phone out of my pocket, I realized with horror that in the last 30 seconds, my LED screen had somehow malfunctioned to a degree that put dial-up computers to shame. It was bad, and I mean BAD. Helplessly, I looked up to find the guard pointing behind me, which could only mean I had no choice but to print my tickets, now a mere 40 minutes before departure.
I ran.
It would seem appropriate at this point to mention that flying from Montreal to San Francisco is expensive. My doing it at all, for a weekend no less, was the product of ample stupidity as well as months of saving. Missing this flight was the complete antithesis of an option.
My limbs, burdened by heavy bags, flailed wildly behind me as I sputtered to a stop in front of the Delta Airlines kiosk, which predictably boasted a dismally long and unmoving line. I made a game-time decision: Sky Priority desk. Sure, I technically was not and likely would never be a Sky Priority member, but I had no time to linger with the rest of the proletariat and watch my money dissolve into some distant atmosphere. Right now, I was going to pull some serious social-climbing, Ann Boleyn-style.
I explained my situation to the woman behind the desk with fervor and embellishment similar to those in this very story you are reading. She had but one question for me:
“Miss, are you Sky Priority?”
Gulp. “Uh. Well, no.”
“WELL then, back of the line.”
I receded like a wounded hound, uttering vulgarities just loud enough for me to now regret. It was imperative, of course, that I waste a solid ten seconds hyperventilating and weighing variations on possible worst case scenarios. (How on EARTH am I going to explain this to my mom?!) Luckily, in my first limelight moment of the day, the entire line had witnessed me get ruthlessly curved, and they unanimously agreed to put me in the front. My people. Ticket in hand, I ran, again, this time back to security.
I had seen enough romantic comedies to know that this was, effectively, out of my hands. Your move, Universe.
With brashness I didn’t know I had, I sloppily elucidated the events of the previous 20 minutes to everyone in the vicinity, and in some confusion (and probably a bit of fear), they stepped aside as I threw possessions I no longer wanted into plastic bins. Security took forever, because that’s what security does, and in that time frame I was able to assemble a cohort of strangers willing to support my cause. Three noble patrons speed-packed my bags as I hastily persuaded the guard that my electric toothbrush was not a weapon, and then they hurled me forth into the great unknown.
I had done it! Five minutes to find my gate, all I needed to do was round the corner and —
CUSTOMS? NOW?! COME ON, CANADA.
The loud profanity ensuing in my head was the soundtrack to a full-scale physical breakdown about to take place in public. All of my friends (because I do consider them friends), parted for me like the Red Sea, and I thanked them for saving me from the half hour wait time like this was some sort of Disneyland attraction. But then I heard a shout.
The customs officer had but one question for me:
“Miss, did you just try to cut?”
Gulp. “Uh, well, I mean sort of but —”
“Back of the line.”
It was at this point that I dropped my things to the floor and began to loudly, and dramatically, sob in public. The customs officer was alarmed. I was a human waterfall, no, a geyser, an intermittent discharge of water being turbulently ejected from my eyeballs. It was not lost on me that well over 100 people were staring, and understandably so, but my capacity for dignity had been run into the ground. Resigned to my fate, I waited the half hour, long after my plane’s departure time, sniffling and accepting wise words from kind strangers. “Let’s be real, we all knew Canada’s global progressivism was just a beard for its complete absurdity. Don’t worry! I’ll start you a GoFundMe! If you want, you could just come with me to Detroit?” I am in love with all of them.
When the customs officer and I met for the second time, with me now looking as though I’d repeatedly plunged my face into a bucket of ice water, he asked his questions, then said sheepishly, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so harsh. But you’ll make your flight, you know. It’s delayed, I checked for you.”
He was right. I did make my flight, and the next one, too.
The trouble hadn’t stopped there. I later grappled with thunderstorms, delays, panic attacks, more broken technology. But for each person I encountered — the customs officer, my friends in line, the elderly couple who handed me tissues at my gate, the Montreal native who distracted me with jokes during my flight — there had been a glimmer of solidarity, a shared understanding. I had witnessed a softening in them, and in turn, a softening in me.
We all have bad days. Sometimes, we even do bad things. But we are all trying our best, too.
So, thanks, all you strangers who helped a very distraught and very disheveled woman at the Montreal airport on a humid August day. I apologize for being out of my mind. Much to my chagrin, this story illustrates some of the traits I least like about myself, given that my life is suffused with fortune and I was always going to make it to my destination. But I’m glad it played out the way it did — it emphasizes that I have things to give and people to give them to, because people, not to my surprise, are really, really wonderful.
And, I need to stop breaking my damn phones.
