As you’ve probably gathered from the title, my flight from the London Heathrow Airport back to Missouri after 3 months studying abroad was bad. But it wasn’t just bad- it’s probably the worst travel experience I’ve had to date. It all started with a delayed takeoff, and ended in running all the way across the airport, barefoot with arms full of loose luggage. As this was all happening, I recorded my experience trying to get home in a series of bullet-points, and I feel like it communicates my panicked state at the time of incidence, November 3rd, 2019:
- Eat at pret twice
⁃ Get on board
⁃ Flight delayed 2 hrs bc of “wind” ok this is London and I’m not buying it
⁃ Finally take off
⁃ Having an aneurysm for 9hrs straight bc my connection was 2.5 hrs before the delay
⁃ Man who reminds me of my uncle is yelling the entire way to a silent wife
⁃ Kind English woman tries to calm him down
⁃ Plane lands and it’s like the trenches
⁃ A bunch of Jerrys sauntering through the middle of the walkway while the wretched few try to careen around them
⁃ Round 1 of us security: dell freezes and tsa man smacks the monitor to make it work before giving up and letting me thru
⁃ Round 2: Jerrys everywhere and people clogging the way bc they don’t know what to do. I meet a young Estonian of similar age, we fret together, she is going to Miami and her flight also started boarding 10 min ago
⁃ Round 3: tsa insane, looks to be at least 1-1.5 hr wait
⁃ Line is not moving
⁃ Estonian is brave and asks a security man if we can go to priority check
⁃ HE SAYS YES
⁃ we throw our things into the godforsaken bins while the machine beeps every bag
⁃ Oh and kind English woman is there too!
⁃ In the middle of living my personal hell, a little girl asks what my name is
⁃ I tell her and ask for hers
⁃ Her name is Tara
⁃ I say “tHAts A bEATifUL NaMe” as the full body scanner has to be recalibrated and my psyche crumbles
⁃ I FINALLY get in the scanner
⁃ A patch of identified suspicion on my back appears
⁃ A poor tsa agent has to swab my sweaty back
⁃ Not bothering to put anything back into my luggage, I run with armfuls of my stuff, but get this
⁃ MY TERMINAL IS THE FURTHEST POSSIBLE POINT FROM SECURITY
⁃ I run a grueling race against the clock in what can best be described as the March of the penguins in terms of exhaustion and hopelessness
⁃ I finally reach my gate and everything falls out of my arms and onto the floor while four flight attendants ask me if I’m about to pass out
⁃ Maybe
⁃ I drag my stuff on board, haggard but triumphant
⁃ My “carry on” does not fit in the compartment but the flight attendants feel too bad for me to do anything about it so I just throw it in an empty seat
⁃ In true, midwestern fashion, the kind folks congratulate me for making it just in time
⁃ I love Missouri