Tag Archives: airports

Postcards, Righteous riffs

The Sauce Boss ….

Whenever I am asked to meet with a new employee, I always start with the most important question. 

I mean THE most important question. 

I preface it by letting the person know that I’m about to ask them the most important question that they will be asked that day. 

Possibly, the most important question they will be asked all week. 

I let them know in advance that the question is cosmic in its scope.

Then I hit ’em with it.

“What is the greatest pizza of all time?” 

I then take a minute to make sure they fully understand the question’s magnitude. 

“In your expert opinion, across the hundreds of assemblages of crust, sauce and toppings you have experienced in the entirety of your illustrious, pizza-eating career … what is the GOAT?”

As they deliberate, I invite them to give thought to why. 

What is it about it that makes it the greatest of all time? 

The ingredients? 

Where or how the ingredients are sourced? Is it the style? The type of crust? The manner in which it’s prepared? Is it the individuals who make it? The ambience in which they experience it? The location where it’s located? Is it the company they experience it with? Perhaps it’s the time in their life that they first encountered it?

Over the years, I’ve asked the question at least a hundred times.

Everyone answers differently, but they all have one thing in common. 

The way their face lights up when they tell me. 

You should see how such love lives on their faces. 

__

So, I’m waiting out a Sunday late-morning flight delay at the Kansas City airport yesterday. 

Young fella sitting next to me sees me holding a small print of a cat in a cowboy costume that some friends (who know me well) gave me that morning. 

Asks me about it. 

I tell him. 

Then he asks me where I’m going. 

I answer and, out of politeness, ask him the same.  

He tells me he’s going to Paris for 82 days, to intern for a ‘church-planting’ organization … scattering seeds in France. 

Couple minutes later, he’s asking me if I know Jesus, and whether I’ve accepted him as the only way to salvation. 

In so many words. 

I mean, soooo many words.

Meanwhile, the voice in my head starts audibly exhaling in discomfort, “Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…” while rubbing the bridge of its metaphorical nose.  

I’m just a guy admiring a print of a cat in a cowboy costume here.

Meanwhile my concerned neighbor is talking all about sin and eternity … with much conviction.

Which I respect both the act and substance of. 

He’s going to make a great intern. 

Says that our days are not guaranteed. Anything can happen. 

“This might be the last flight we ever take,” he says, gesturing to the door to the jetway. 

I don’t disagree. 

He mentions that Jesus is coming back.

Soon.

I suppress the urge to mention that history is littered with a lot of humans who over-estimated their gifts for guesstimating that particular arrival time.

He starts peppering me with a bunch of questions. 

And keeps pressing me for a verbal … like a flight attendant prompting an exit row passenger. 

Meanwhile, all I can hear is Paul whispering in my ear “… with gentleness and respect.”

I genuinely don’t want to be disrespectful. 

For all I know, God might be eavesdropping on his intern.  

I also don’t want to get deep … meaning the granularity of it. 

But I do want to get deep … meaning the heart of it. 

And I know that if I choose the latter, he’s just going to want to further litigate the former. 

But I couldn’t help myself.

So I answered him … by saying that I have a wise friend who knows more chapter and verse than I ever will. 

And that the wisest thing I have ever heard him utter isn’t a Bible verse.

When someone asked him a question he didn’t have an answer for, my wise friend said that he wasn’t sure.

And added, “I’m OK with God knowing more than I do.” 

Which pretty much sums up my faith right now.

It’s taken me a while to get to this cruising altitude. 

I can’t tell you exactly how close I am to any destination.

There are lots of clouds when I look up.

I’m not even sure how accurate my heading is … as I tend to overestimate the scale of things. 

I’m just trying to hold things steady enough to eventually give me a better vantage point.  

Which is no small accomplishment, given my fear of heights and poor sense of direction. 

But I do have some people in my life right now who are generous in sharing their coordinates with me. More experienced navigators who have logged a lot more miles, spent more time with the map, and seen a lot more of the world than I have. Best of all, they are generous in sharing the detours and emergency landings they’ve made … in hopes that I either avoid, or at the very least, take different ones. 

God bless bound-for-Paris Josoo (“rhymes with ‘tofu’” as he introduced himself), but I don’t think I gave him the exit row answer he and his pilot were hoping for. 

But his soon-to-be-summer employer should know that it wasn’t for a lack of intention on his part. 

After a few minutes, I needed to detangle, so I got up to stand where the boarding lines were about to form.

I confess to you that I hoped that neither God nor United Airlines sat us next to each other on the plane. 

But sitting and sifting here, though … I kinda’ regret praying for that. 

Because I just thought of something I wished I would’ve asked Josoo. 

I would have asked him to talk to me about love. 

About love that rejoices in truth. 

A love that always protects. 

Always trusts. 

A love that in spite of everything … still hopes and perseveres. 

I’d ask him to talk to me about love so Great.

Love that never fails … even when all other prophecies cease, all tongues still, and all other knowledge passes away. 

A love whose planes never run late. 

___

By which I mean … I would have liked to ask him The Most Important Question.

At least the most important one anyone would ask him that day, if not over the next 82. 

I would’ve asked him about the greatest pizza of all time. 

I’d take a good minute to make sure he fully understood the question. 

So I could learn what, in his expert, pizza-eating opinion makes it the greatest … out of all the hundreds of combinations that he’s experienced in his illustrious, pizza-eating career.  

Just so I could see how love lives on his face, and feel how it lives in his heart.

Trust me … I would rejoice in learning of his personal relationship with pizza.

Which would expand my humble understanding of how crust, sauce and toppings can go together. 

And all I know for certain is that he would answer the same question differently than anyone else I’ve ever asked.

And that, by the end, I would likely be hungry to experience pizza the way he experiences pizza.  

And if the Spirit was really moving within me, I might even ask him his perspective when it comes to anchovies.

Not to convince him, mind you.  

Just to see if we had any common ground there. 

All of which to say … I’m no theologian. 

I’m content knowing that if there is a God … she probably looks at me the same way I look at prints of cats in cowboy costumes.

But it’s hard for me to imagine that she cares all that much that I don’t like crust. 

My wife Karry doesn’t mind. 

I let her have mine.

Heck, maybe it makes God happier to see us sharing. 

And I would never deign to speak for her, but I imagine that if God made us in her image, then she probably autonomically smiles when she sees how our faces light up when talking about the greatest pizza of all-time. 

Heck, she’s probably just waiting for us to ask her The Important Question.

So she can reply, in so many words, “Have you ever tried it with the Jesus sauce?” 

So that we can see how a love that hopes all things … lives on her face.

So that we might truly know the GOAT.  

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Postcards

A mad dash of humanity ….

Met a friend for lunch Tuesday while attending a conference in Austin.

He kindly let me check my roller bag to his room at the conference hotel so I wouldn’t have to schlep it.

After lunch I had a couple work calls. Last one finished up right before I had to leave for the airport.

Perfect timing. 

Called an Uber.

Traffic to the airport was starting to choke a bit, but I’d left myself plenty of time.

Thirty minutes into my ride, just as we were pulling into the exit for Departing Flights, I got the sickest feeling in my the pit of my stomach …

… accompanied by the biggest Oh Shit moment.   

Sheepishly I asked the driver, “Um, excuse me … Did I put a bag in the trunk?”

He eyed me quizzically in the rear view mirror.

Shook his head no.

“No bag,” he said.

I forgot to retrieve my checked bag before leaving for the airport.

Yep, I did that.

As an onset of panic claimed my extremities, I asked the driver if he could return me to the hotel. 

Shook his head no again. 

He’d already accepted another fare. 

I didn’t have time to ride back and get my luggage myself, anyway.

So he dropped my bagless ass off at the curb. 

I thought for a second.

Looked up the hotel. 

Realized that, not only had I not stayed at the hotel, the bag was in my friend’s name, not mine. 

Got bounced around until they connected me to the service manager, Clarissa.

I explained my situation, trying to sound as un-sketchy as possible while completely freaking the eff out.  

She thought for a second, before suggesting I try calling another Uber to the hotel to ‘just’ pick up my bag and bring it to me at the airport.

“Can you do that?” I asked.

Through the phone I could almost hear her shrugging her shoulders in “Uh … beats me?” uncertainty.

So I hung up and tried calling an Uber to the hotel to pick up my bag.

The app asked me to double confirm myself as the passenger, since it could tell my phone was, um, already at the airport.

I lied and confirmed that the ride was indeed for me, since there wasn’t an option for “You’re not going to believe how large of an idiot I am.” 

Surprisingly. 

I immediately called Clarissa back to give her the name of my driver (Daimir), his make and model (black Chevy Traverse) and his arrival time (5 minutes). 

“Ooh. Let me run to the front desk to get your bag. Then I’ll take it down to valet and explain the situation to them,” she said, suggesting I also give the driver a heads up on what to expect … before he arrived.

In the app I could see Daimir’s progress to the hotel.

I waited until he got close-ish (out of fear my unusual request might make his skittish) before I messaged him (Daimir prefers messages, according to the app) to let him know he’ll be scooping up just, you know, a bag.

I hit send and prayed.

Watched the dancing dots … indicating he was messaging me back.

Held my breath.

“I got you,” he said.

Exhale.

My flight was scheduled to leave at 5:50 p.m.

It was on-time.

Of course it was.

Made me shake my head since all three of the family’s Sunday flights from Orlando (me to Austin, Karry & Peter to Pittsburgh and Emma back to Philly) got totally hosed. Em’s got canceled and re-booked for the next morning, while the rest of us arrived hours after we were supposed to. 

Meanwhile, Tuesday’s flight? 

Runnin’ like goddamn clockwork.

When I ordered the Uber, it showed an arrival time of 5:12 p.m. … which felt like just enough time for get through security and find my gate.

Then Daimir’s arrival time started dancing.

Rush hour.

Holding my fate in my hands, I watched helplessly as time began to slip. 

5:17.

5:21. 

5:27. 

5:30.

It, along with the pit in my stomach, bottommed out at 5:32 … when I walked over to the Southwest Help Desk near baggage claim.  

Explained my situation … asked when the doors close on a 5:50 p.m. flight.

First person said, “15 minutes before.”

My heart sank. 

But then she said, “Let me double-check with the boss,” and turned to the person at the next kiosk. 

“Doors close 10 minutes before departure.” 

First person did the math for me. 

“So, 5:40 …,” she said, and then, smiling, added … “So you’re saying there’s a chance.” 

Cracked herself up with that one. 

I refreshed the app … Daimir’s arrival hovered at 5:31 p.m. … which would give me 9 minutes to make it through the security and find my gate. 

I messaged Daimir with my flight info, said I’d be waiting at the curb. “Too much excitement! (ha),” I texted. 

“I got you,” he reaffirmed. 

I hiked over to the TSA Pre-Check entrance, asked the agent where Gate 12 was in relation to security.

“Other end of the terminal.”

Of course it was.

I can’t begin to describe how excruciating it was to watch my fragile fate fluctuate while stress-watching Daimir’s real-time progress.

He was still 15 minutes out when I knew I had to occupy my mind somehow. 

Cracked open the New York Times on my phone … randomly scrolled to an interview .. discussing the premise that over the past few decades, social media has exacerbated the erosion in society, particularly among youth, of anything approaching a shared moral order.

At one point in the interview … the subject said that, while imperfect, systems like religion provide value in the form of a shared moral order or system. 

The absence of such shared systems, the interviewee said, can result in an untethered, individualistic, self-oriented society, which can then become a breeding ground for fear, anxiety and aloneness. 

It was an INTOITW moment for me. (“I never thought of it that way.”)

Fearful, anxious and alone, I clicked out of the article before I got to the end of the interview. Candidly, I was afraid to learn of the expert’s predictions for our future  … since me and my bag’s prospects of making it home were being held together by the frayed tether of a shared moral order. 

I checked Daimir’s progress … saw he’d messaged me.

He asked me to provide a specific landmark so he could bullseye my precise location.

Thoughtful, I thought. 

I snapped a pic of the overhead sign I’d be standing under, said to look for the skinny guy in glasses wearing a black, short-sleeved t-shirt hopping up and down trying in vain to hold his shit together. 

“Got it,” he replied. 

“Doing the best I can,” he added. “Traffic is so bad! [ha]”

The [ha] meant everything.

For the record, my world is duct-taped together by such tiny gestures of humanity.

His arrival time ebbed back a bit to 5:27.

“Go Daimir!” I rooted in my head.

When his arrival dwindled under a minute, I looked up from my phone … and started scouting the glut of arriving cars dropping off.  

When I caught sight of a black Chevy Traverse, I initiated pretty much the dictionary definition of “gesticulating.” 

When the car got close enough for me to register the windshield, I could see Daimir already waving recognition to me. 

At precisely 5:27 … he eased the Traverse to the curb, hopped out the driver’s seat and met me at the back so he could lift my bag out for me.

“Daimir, I would give you the biggest hug right now … but I gotta run.”

“I got you,” he smiled back.

Dashed inside with my roller to the pre-check line. Asked a couple nice ladies if they minded if I went ahead of them, gave them the short version of my circumstance.

After throwing my bags on the belt, I turned and asked their names.

“Tessa.”

“Cara.”

I repeated their names back to them … thanked them for being awesome and promised I would pay their kindness forward.

After passing through the security arch, I looked back to see the TSA agent responsible for scanning just as he began eyeballing my bags. 

Dude was thorough.

A genuine credit to his profession, I tell ya. 

He screen was angled such that I could see what he was seeing. He paused the belt for both my roller and my backpack.

Kept switching between the views … 

Up.

Down.

From the side.

The other side.

Zoomed in.

Back out.

Back in again.  

Doing the phuck out of his job … while I’m on the verge of an embolism.

5:31 tumbled to 5:32.

I start jumping up and down … a by-product of volcanic stress and the practical desire to stretch out my legs for my forthcoming roller bag 400 meter sprint. 

When I realized I was suddenly Jumpy Guy Going Through Security.

Not a good look.

Fortunately, screening guy was so locked in on his monitor to not even register my hyperventilating calisthenics, eventually bestowing his blessing upon my bags, which I snatched from the belt like Olympic relay batons before breaking into my first airport sprint … in decades.  

I was reminded that Austin’s Southwest terminal is really well-designed. 

Super traveler-friendly. 

Lots of hospitality and retail acreage between gates. 

Art installations, too … such as the “Interimaginary Departures Gate,” sandwiched right after Gate 14.

It’s meant to provide a smile and a moment of whimsy to anxious travelers … where you can actually print a ticket to destinations like “Narnia,” among 120 fictional locations … while overhead, a speaker announces imminent departures to Hogwarts and Terabithia and the like. 

It’s genuinely wonderful. 

I’ve cited it often in my work as an exquisite example of context-aware, extraordinary experience design.

And I grenade launched at least a dozen eff bombs at it while cursing it to the depth of Hades for adding an extra 20 meters or so to my mad dash. 

[ha]

I was on fumes and audibly wheezing by the time I caught a glimpse of Gate 12 in front of me. 

Saw passengers still in line. 

Exhaled for the first time since I received Damir’s confirming message. 

Looked down at my phone. 

5:39. 

Found my place and politely wedged myself in, Sweaty-Middle-Aged-Guy-Heavily-Panting-style.

After beeping my ticket, I cracked open the app. 

Gave Daimir 5 Stars. 

And a tip befitting a life saver. 

Called Clarissa back to let her know I made it and to thank her for being awesome. 

“I’m so glad you called,” she said. “I was wondering. I’m so glad you made it!”

I promised to pay her kindness forward, too. 

Which I had the great honor of doing this morning.

As I did so … I made a point to mention them all by name.

Clarissa. 

Daimir. 

Tess and Cara. 

My friend Tim for letting me check my bag in his name. 

I even mentioned thorough TSA screening guy, too. 

For taking his job so seriously.

For doing his best to keep us all safe.

I pray blessings upon them all … and everyone who might read this. 

For crowd surfing me home on the soft shoulders of their kindness. 

A tiny but mighty shared moral order.

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