Loose Leaf Notes

Aka: The Saugus Saga
I. One of my brothers is going through a divorce and his finances have been challenged because of it. When I first saw him during my ten day visit with my family in Hull, I remarked at how much weight he had lost. “I call it the ‘I can’t afford to buy food diet,’” he joked.

 
I lost three pounds myself during my visit. A couple of them were probably due to long walks on the beach and bike rides. One was the result of what I joked to be the “ginger-ale and pretzels for supper diet.”

 
For two days I was one of the refugees from Logan Airport when flights were canceled due to stormy weather on the day I was suppose to fly to LaGuardia and then to Greensboro, where Joe was planning to pick me up. After reluctantly accepting my predicament, leaving my husband a phone message that began “the insanity has begun,” and waiting in more than one long line of dissatisfied travelers, I got my ticket changed to 6:00 a.m. the next morning. Finding myself riding with four other strangers in a Days Inn van to a hotel in Saugus, eight miles from Logan on Boston’s north shore, set the stage for what could have been a scene out of a Twilight Zone episode.

 
Truth is stranger than Science Fiction. The episode I call the “Saugus Saga” got worse when the hotel in Saugus said my charge card was denied. I explained that the card worked all week but might have to be punched in manually. The clerk insisted emphatically that it had been declined, that there was nothing further he could do, and that he would hold my room for only 15 minutes.

 
Feeling that I had no options, I threatened to sleep in the lobby. That’s when a woman named Polly, who I had struck up a conversation with in the van, offered to share her room with me. By this time I was emotionally and physically spent. I was not thinking straight, but knew enough to know that I needed a room of my own to de-stress and gear up for what might face me the next morning.

 
In Polly’s room, I was able to make a call to my credit card company and discovered that they had upgraded my card without my consent! After fifteen minutes on the phone and running to the lobby with the phone call on hold, the card went through. Too exhausted and reluctant to face the world again, I stayed in my room watching TV and using the hotel’s wireless, which is when the pretzels and ginger-ale for supper came into play.

II. When Polly and I arrived at the airport at 5:15 a.m. the next morning, by way of the hotel courtesy van, the check in line for departing flights was about a mile long. I complained to everyone that would listen that I was going to miss my plane. After several false starts in wrong lines, I made my way to airport security with only 15 minutes to spare. That’s when I was randomly chosen for a pat down and bag search and when my adrenaline really started to flow towards the direction of a nervous breakdown.

 
I made the plane in the nick of time and so did Polly. I re-met up with her on the same plane I was traveling on. In Philadelphia, where she was connecting to Greensboro and I was scheduled to fly to Roanoke, we had breakfast together. (I was starving. Not only do flights not provide pretzels and peanuts anymore, they charge you $2.00 for drinks.) Polly and I talked about how airport travel gone wrong can be a stage for human nature and drama to play out. Events are neutral. Everything comes down to how we react to them. I was travel-weary but proud of myself for making it through one of life’s unexpected obstacle courses. Reuniting with Joe never felt so good.
Post note: On a sad note, in the few days I’ve been home since my trip, I’ve gained the three pounds back.
Thanks to my nephew David for helping me proof read this.