The boarding announcement stirred up the young and the old alike. I sat there people watching as they called out the group numbers.
A couple of minutes in, the older white woman leaned over from her seat, "what is your group number?"
I told her the number.
"They already called your number. You should go."
"That's alright. We are all going to the same plane anyway," I replied.
That was not the response that she was expecting.
"Are you a yogi?
That was not the question that I had expected. I smiled.
"That's what a yogi would say, you know?"
"Yes." I smiled again, though wondering whether she would know that I was actually smiling.
I am, according to the friend, the calmest wreck. Which is perhaps why the woman did not know that I was all agitated inside.
The agitation was not because of trump. But from a simple fact that I have had plenty of bad luck with flights. Flights delayed and canceled for all kinds of reasons.
My favorite (worst) were these two: Once it was because a flight attendant did not show up, and they had to cancel the flight. Another time, the jet-bridge couldn't reach the doorway of the plane--a mechanical malfunction--and it stopped about a foot short. They did not allow us to deplane, even though we could have easily crossed over the two-foot gap, and I missed my connection.
Yet, I apparently came across as a calm yogi to the older passenger.
"Shit happens" is a great bumper sticker, yes, but not when that shit happens to you, right?
Over the years, I have come to understand that shit not only happens, but it happens all the time. "Life ain't all rose petals," I recently told my daughter. "I wish it were," was her immediate response.
I wish her, and all of you, nothing but rose petals.
2 comments:
Yes, you have had a disproportionate bad experience with delayed or held up flights considering that you don't fly all that much.
As an aside, India has become a world standard for flights on time. I travel a lot, but rarely has there been a significant delay. Two reasons - competition and a regulator who slapped fines for delays. Now the processes for turning around flights have almost been perfected. Indian aviation is now world leading . Good for us.
On the theme of your post - both shit and roses happen in equal measure in life over the long run. Human nature tends to magnify the shit and underplay the roses. So I'll modify the wish slightly - may you enjoy to the fullest every rose petal.
Yes, we magnify the negatives, just like "no plane crashed today" does not make a good newspaper headline. This worry about the negative has contributed a lot to our collective advancement over the millennia ...
Your modified wishes will also work ... but, as long as we are wishing for something, we may as well wish for rose petals every day, right?
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