NOTE: I actually wrote this for a composition class back in October. I chose to publicly post this for your reading pleasure. Also, in an attempt to be less slanderous, I replaced the offending party's name. Enjoy.It was supposed to be the perfect day, a perfect ending to a perfect trip. Unfortunately, it will forever be etched in my memory as one of the worst days I have ever experienced. While it would be an untruth to state that my life changed drastically that day, it did serve as a catalyst for some necessary personal changes.
Before I delve into the events of the day itself, it would be irresponsible of me to not provide a background for the events. I had decided to reward the completion of my undergraduate studies with an April vacation with one of my closest friends. He wanted to experience our country’s great landmarks, and I desired to take the opportunity to enjoy warm weather and to meet a long distance friend in Florida. We compromised and decided to spend two days in Washington, D.C. and five days Tampa and Orlando in Florida.
That week we had the time of our lives. We climbed the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and drove past the Ford Theater. We saw Tampa Bay Rays games, toured the Kennedy Space Center, and basked in the sunlight at two beaches (Cocoa and Clearwater). Everything had gone perfectly except for two items: I spent too much time in the sun at Clearwater Beach and was badly sunburned, and I had yet to meet my friend. One of my most important reasons for taking the trip was to finally meet her. Based on the long conversations we had and the chemistry these conversations seemed to suggest we would have, I believed that a face to face meeting would jumpstart a romantic relationship. I began to worry that we would never meet. This was remedied that night. She called me to arrange a meeting at the airport before my flight departed. Hope turned to excitement and excitement to expectation. This was going to be the best day of my life!
I was so excited that I could not sleep. Though we were not scheduled to check out of our hotel until just after five o’clock in the morning, I was up at three to get ready for my 7:30 meeting. I showered, shaved, and showered again. The odor of my Michael Jordan Cologne permeated the room. I dressed myself in a brand new shirt, my favorite pair of jeans, and my “lucky” argyle socks. After prodding my traveling companion until he awakened, we were finally ready to leave.
In order to reach the airport in Orlando, we had to make a two hour drive from our hotel in Tampa. It was not an easy drive partly due to construction and partly due to the obstruction the sunrise caused on my sight. Loud, driving music blared from the speakers for the duration of the ride for the purpose of keeping us awake and easing my nerves. While it succeeded with the former, it failed with the latter. After two hours, we finally reached Orlando. All that was left to do before meeting S-Blah was to refill the gas tank of the rental car and then turn in the car (a serviceable 2008 Kia Rio). Once we reached the gas station, my day began to fall apart.
Just before we arrived at the gas station my phone received a new text message. I waited until we reached the gas station to check it. It was from S-Blah. My heart raced as I braced myself for the contents of the message. It read: “Recent sleep depravity has made me hungover (sic) with sleep. Will not make it to the airport.” I was crushed. The person that I had cared so much about that I spent thousands of dollars to travel a thousand miles to meet not only canceled on me but had the audacity to do so in a written message. I was extremely disappointed, but resigned myself to the fact that things could get worse. No sooner had I made that resignation, things did get worse.
After filling my tank with gas, we arrived at the Enterprise Rent-a-Car facility to return the vehicle. I was in a daze as they examined the car to ensure that it was in the same condition that it was on Wednesday when we picked it up. We signed some papers, and we caught the shuttle back to the airport for what we presumed would be a long wait there before our flight.
It turned out that our early schedule was a blessing in disguise. As we went to check in our luggage we were asked to show identification. I reached in my pocket for my wallet. It was gone! I was so upset about being stood up by S-Blah that I neglected to put my wallet back in my pocket after taking it out at the gas station. Both my friend and I remembered it being in the cup-holder of the car after that point, so we took a shuttle back to Enterprise to reclaim the wallet. When we returned to Enterprise, the manager said the car was just cleaned and there was no report of a wallet found. The manager suggested I return to the gas station to check to see if I had left it there. While I ran a mile in my black “Chuck Taylor’s” (not the most appropriate shoes for running) down a gravel path in the Orlando sun only to find that my wallet was not at the gas station, my friend sat with the manager of Enterprise as they watched the footage from the security camera. A rectangular black object was seen in the car, but once it went to be cleaned it was nowhere to be found. Unfortunately, the cleaners were independently contracted and could not be directly questioned by the manager. I was out of two hundred dollars in cash, another two hundred dollars in assorted gift cards, and two credit cards. I quickly called to cancel both cards, and we returned to the airport empty-handed.
I would have been upset if the money was the only thing I lost from my wallet. Unfortunately, I also lost all forms of identification and still needed to fly home to Chicago. I was crushed, disappointed, and angry. I soon was able to add embarrassment to my litany of emotions. Since I lacked the necessary identification to board a flight, I had to earn my boarding by “alternate means”. I was interrogated by airport security concerning nearly my entire life. I was asked my birth date, phone number, address, names of family members, destination of my vacation as well as the name of my traveling companion, and even the name of the high school from which I graduated. My parents were called to verify my answers. Any inconsistencies and who knows when I would have returned from Orlando. Once the interrogation was over, I was publicly frisked. As other travelers passed through the metal detector, I was frisked in a separate aisle. As I was frisked, other security members conducted a detailed search of my carry-on bag. My sunscreen violated the size requirement to be brought on carry-on luggage, and I was asked to “willingly surrender” the sunscreen to the airport. That was the metaphorical salt in my gaping wound. I was ready to finally go home.
The flight would have been exceedingly uncomfortable strictly due to my sunburn, but other items made it even worse. We were late boarders, so our seating choices were limited. My friend and I were able to sit together, but we were stuck in the second-to-last row of the airplane and were surrounded by patrons who had no respect for personal space. The passenger to my right commandeered the entire armrest, and the passenger behind me began to kick my seat. Worst of all, the passenger in front of me moved her seat the entire way back. Since I am 6 feet 4 inches tall, there is a general level of feeling cramped in an airplane, but this pushed it over the edge. Mercifully, we landed in Chicago, and I believed our troubles were finally behind us.
There was one more calamity awaiting us at Midway Airport. Our luggage took some time to get unloaded and sent to baggage claim. I quickly found my luggage, but my friend was having difficulty finding his. An hour passed, and it never came. He notified the airport, and they took down his information so that the luggage could be delivered if or when it finally arrived. The amusing part of all this (if missing luggage can be found amusing) is that a labeling error put his name on my bags, and vice versa. The luggage labeled “Jakob Duehr” was missing. Mercifully, the day was over.
That day sent me into a prolonged period of bitterness. My world had crashed around me. It was the first time in my life that I was devoid of hope. While I long struggled with issues of bitterness, I began to get even angrier about the smallest things and hold grudges for the bigger ones.
The day also sent me on a long and winding road to recovery. In an attempt to deal with this bitterness I read a book entitled The Gift: You Ask and You Get.. One of the most important points of the book was that our life is more affected by reactions to life’s events than the events itself. One night while I was tossing and turning in my bed, I thought of the trip and of the book. I realized that I could not control being stood up by S-Blah, losing my wallet, being treated like a member of the Watch List at the airport. I did, however, have a choice to remain bitter or react positively. I realized had a great learning experience that Sunday in April; that is, if I chose to learn from it. That day, though it was one of the worst of my life, helped me to get to the point of letting go of negativity and reacting calmly and positively. It has been said that sometimes in order to take two steps forward, one must take one step back. April 19, 2009 is proof of that.
