On displacement (Part Two).
It’s been said that missed opportunities are never really missed because they’re always taken by someone else.On August 26th, I said goodbye to Missy and Maddie and John in the parking lot of Dr. Crawford’s office and climbed into a Tesla to get to an airport by the hotel. The Tesla was fancy; I couldn’t figure out how to open the door. The navigation screen was an iPad and when it picked up speed, it sounded like an airplane.
The hotel was great. I’m a huge fan of hotel bars now, by the way. I had a couple of beets and some snacks before I went up to my room. I took a two-hour nap. I didn’t set an alarm or anything, and I would have LOVED to sleep longer. I remembered what Missy said about the week being emotionally exhausting and I just nodded or whatever, but she totally had a point. I guess I didn’t sleep longer because I was anxious about my flight then next day and making the shuttle. I ate my anxiety before it could eat me via WAY TOO MUCH Chinese food. It was good, though.
I made the shuttle and boarded my flight just fine, but I didn’t sleep on the plane. I wish I had. I never sleep anymore. Maybe that’s why my brain was foggy and I left my phone in the bathroom by the gate but I didn’t realize that until I was already at baggage claim. I couldn’t find the right carousel and a very attractive young man told me which one it was. So I went to text Melanie, who was picking me up with her husband Brian and their friend Dave, but alas–my phone was in the bathroom stall. I started to panic, especially when the TSA agent told me I wouldn’t be allowed through security with a used boarding pass. She told me to find an airline agent. Shekemia P. from United Airlines at Newark Airport is a goddess, an angel!
She called my phone and a wonderful British woman answered. She had talked to Melanie when she called and was trying to deliver my phone to an agent. Shekemia went through security to find this unbelievably kind British woman and told me to wait by where we first met. The hot baggage handler passed by a couple of times and I told him about my phone, and he says, “Too bad you don’t have your phone. I was gonna ask you for your number.” And then he just smiled and walked off. A little while later, when I was freaking out worse and still waiting, he came back and asked if I had my number memorized. Obviously I did, so I gave him my number. I didn’t see him again, because another agent saw how worried I look and tried to help me track down Shekemia and we found her. I called Melanie, they picked me up, and we were on our way to the My Chemical Romance concert.
The hot baggage handler texted me and we talked for a couple of minutes. He messaged me again when we got to the hotel and and we made plans to go on a date Wednesday evening. I went to write back and all of a sudden, my SIM card was invalid. My phone kept telling me my SIM failed. I could not believe it. Melanie and Dave tried to help me figure it out: we put my SIM in Dave’s phone, we did a hard reset, we Googled how to fix it–but nothing worked. Brian offered to drive to a Verizon store on the way to the UBS arena, which was incredibly generous. The first store didn’t have SIM cards. They directed me to another store, which didn’t exist. The third and final store had SIM cards, but to activate it, the employee had to get in touch with the authorized users on the account … my parents.
They NEVER answer numbers they don’t know. I had to call five times before my mom picked up and thank God she did. We finally left for the arena over an hour later than Brian had planned, but everyone was so patient and accommodating and kind, and I remembered how blessed I am.
The baggage guy suddenly canceled the date without any explanation. I wonder if it was because I wasn’t texting him? But there was that whole issue with my SIM card. I heard once that you can’t really be with someone unless you have a great origin story. I thought I had mine, but alas; it was not meant to be.
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