Travel Purgatory

I should have known. Everything was going too smoothly. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go into the terminal with you?” my dad asks as we pull up to Spirit Airline’s LAX departure gate, ready for my 11:45PM red eye flight. Having travelled an almost uncountable amount of times in the past few years, I thought it was silly that my dad would even ask. My flight was booked. I had my money. My passport. My acne medication. There was no possible way anything could go wrong. “Papa, I’ve travelled plenty of times before, I’m not a little kid. I got this. What could go wrong? Gotta go. Love you, bye!”

I doomed myself for failure as soon as the words: “what could go wrong” came out of my mouth.

“Mr. Castillo, your flight left yesterday.” Wait. WHAT. What do you mean my flight left yesterday? That’s not possible! “Well Mr .Castillo, our records indicate that you booked with a travel agency. Maybe you should check with them. There’s not much we can do.” I don’t like being called Mr. Castillo; I’m not even 20 and I believe it places a level of responsibility  on my shoulders that I’m not yet ready to handle in the world of hospitality. I move my luggage to the side of the check in and try to contact the travel agency I used to book my incredibly cheap ticket (I should have known then!). “Thanks for calling; all our representatives are currently with other customers like you and we will be with you shortly.” 15 minutes. “All of our representatives are assisting other flyers like you, thank you for your patience.” 30 minutes. “Thanks for holding, someone will be answering your call soon!” 45 minutes. “Thanks for waiting. Oh, and fuck you.” Ok, that last one didn’t happen but it certainly felt that way after being on hold for 45 minutes with nothing but four different euphemisms for “we’re understaffed and can’t answer your call” to show for it.

I make the mistake and text my dad that they messed up my flight. The calls and texts from Mama and Papa Castillo start coming in. What happened? Are you ok? What’s going on? Do you need us to pick you up? What do you need? You would think that they would coordinate these messages together but they seemed to be in opposite corners of the house texting me similar messages of worry without consulting the other with what contact they had with me. I ask to speak with the manager of the LAX Spirit terminal who manages to at least fix my itinerary free of charge with one caveat: the flight to Medellin is booked but they’re able to get me to Miami. Figuring that the closer I am the better, I take the flight, check in my bags, and ready to wage the war of my life: travel purgatory.

As I walk through security, I think to myself: “This doesn’t happen to real people! This only happens on the news and in Home Alone.” I make it to the terminal fine, already exhausted because it’s 11:30. The plane to Miami is uncomfortable but I manage to squeeze in 4 hours of sleep. As I arrive, I have 2 1/2 hours until the flight to Medellin. It is currently 7:30 in the morning. Turns out the flight is delayed by an hour, so that buys me some time to whip up some shit together that will surely get me to my destination. I wait for an hour to talk to a customer service rep in the terminal. There’s a little kid who keeps scratching at my shoes, his mother not caring enough to pull him off the floor. I do my best to exert my mental energy into thinking of more ways to get onto this flight as opposed to making a list of possible ways to improve this mom’s parenting skills.

I finally talk to the rep. “Sorry, we’re filled. We can’t do anything until we board. Just relax until then.” Easier said then done. With 3 hours to sit around and be anxious, I watch National Lampoon’s European Vacation on my laptop. I make a list of things not to do in Europe and have an incredible amount of jealously for these fictional characters from the 1980s who managed to get on their flights with no problem. 3 hours pass like 3 days, but finally: boarding! 20 minutes before doors close: 8 missing people missing. There’s hope. 10 minutes: 4 missing. 3 minutes: 2 missing. There’s 3 of us on stand-by. I had made friends with a woman who had been waiting in the airport for 3 days trying to catch a flight to Medellin for an interview. We hadn’t discussed it but I knew if it came to it, we could force the other man on stand-by into a violent submission in order to get onto the plane. 2 minutes. NO ONE! I thought I was saved. That was, until airport personnel wheeled in two elderly folks who had gotten lost in the terminal. I don’t think I’ve ever had such rage for the elderly.

It becomes apparent I’m not getting on this flight. It’s 11:45AM. I try and get a new flight. The customer service woman, although very nice, doesn’t seem to have a firm grasp yet on the computer program used to book flights as she slowly types away and asks her co-worker for help through out the process. One hour later, she tells me there’s NOTHING for the next week. Oh balls. Now what? I’m seriously freaked out now. Spirit Airlines only has one flight into Medellin each day. I don’t have the money to purchase a ticket from another airline. Lost in my train of thought, the woman assisting me has to catch my attention to inform me of an update. I thought she’d tell me she found a flight. Turns out that I had to run to baggage claim to get my luggage within the next 5 minutes or my luggage would be going to Colombia without me. Shit.

It’s now 1:30 and luckily, I have my luggage. Everything has gone wrong but I’ve managed to salvage one part of this day. I’ve lived off of a strict diet of dried fruit and Goldfish for the past 12 hours and I’m craving a big piece of steak (I don’t even like steak) real bad. I set up camp next to the baggage claim with my computer and phone. I call the ticketing agency I used while I surf facebook. 20 minutes (record time!) later someone answers my call. I let them know that they screwed up my reservation. Big time. I ask for flights going out of Medellin, but nothing on Spirit and nothing on anything else until the next day. They tell me I’m going to have to pay. Goddammit. Before I did anything drastic, I needed to talk to my parents. I ask for a direct number from the woman I’m speaking to in order to by-pass the 20 minute wait it takes to talk to anyone from the company. She gladly gives me a number to reach her at and I’m pleasantly surprised that I can now cut through some of the red tape in my life. I give my father a call. He thinks I should call it quits and come home. I don’t blame him, but I’m stubborn as hell and I’m determined to make it to Colombia even if it kills me.

I call the direct line the travel agent gave me over the phone. “We’re sorry but this number is no longer in service, please try calling again.” BITCHES.

2:10PM. Enraged and delusional, I march to the ticketing counter at the terminal drop off, full well knowing I’ll have to go through security again. No Spirit Airline reps will speak to me unless I get in line. I wait an hour and a half. I read a book by Rick Steves about the wonders and joys of travelling. I hate him right now. Luckily, I became so consumed with my rage that the time pass less arduously compared to the rest of the day. I would have been able to speak to a rep sooner if 45 flyers late for a plane to Jamaica weren’t given priority over me. No one was in front of me in my line. Yet Jamaican after Jamaican (with the occasional WASP-y vacation family) was escorted by a Spirit Rep in front of me in order to receive service. I wanted to cry but I also told myself that I wasn’t going to cry or rely on my family to bail me out because I’m stubborn.

I finally made it to the counter. A guy named Fritz was the representative. I told him my situation. I told him my story. I told him how desperate I was. But all he could give me was a callous reply. “Well, it’s not our fault. And you’re going to have to buy a new ticket. There’s nothing I can do, there’s no flights.” Fuck this shit. I was going to Medellin. I was going on a plane. And Fritz my new friend would help me, whether he wanted to or not. I asked to speak to a manager. Apparently he was the manager. I asked to speak to his manager but he wouldn’t budge. I told him that this trip has been a 4 month build up of work, raising money, and sweat. Lots and lots of sweat (it had been 14 hours since I last applied deodorant). And finally, I called him out on his BS. I said that I knew there was a flight and I knew he could be put me on it. He gave me a blank stare and said that he’d go to the back room and figure something out.

In the 45 minutes that it took for him to come back, I was so proud of myself. I was a stubborn, bitter customer that managed to harass the airline employee into providing my the service that I should have received in the first place. I feel like my father would have been proud of me. I saw Fritz meeping around what appeared to be the “big boss” and he finally came back. “Well, we can get you onto a flight Thursday at 10:45am.” YES. I was elated. I literally screamed a scream of joy. Fritz looked concerned and exasperated. He took my passport and began plugging away into the computer system, getting me ready for my flight two days from them. I felt like I had given birth or got a weight of my shoulder or some equivalent analogy that properly indicates how relieved I was after 14 hours of torture.

I called my parents and professor to let them know of the current good news. Fortunately, my friend Fernando from Emerson was living in Miami this summer and I had a place to stay for two nights. He would be able to pick me up from the airport but not for another two hours. Mostly relaxed and with time to burn, I once again set up camp but near the check-in this time around. I sat in the corner of the room Skyping with a friend for a few hours. I made some friends who came up and asked why I was skyping in the middle of the airport (not even near the gate) and they all seemed to sympathize with the pitfalls in my adventure. No one could describe me that day better than my friend Adrienne who I had been skyping with. After giving her in the indepth breakdown of the past 14 hours she remarked: “DAMN youza stranded bitch”. I concurred.

5:45PM. Fernando picks me up. I’m elated. We go back to his uncle’s house where he’s staying and I pass out for a good 14 hours with a small 3 hour break to watch some Law & Order SVU. I not only survived travel purgatory but I had won! Victory at last. And I even got a two-day vacation in South Beach which I throughly enjoyed but more about that later. I sit in the airport now, about to board my flight to Colombia. I have a seat there. That sense of security is a feeling that no one can take away.

Unless Spirit fucks up in the next 4 minutes.