By Erika Hoffman
Dad is 88. He lives with me. About
every 7 months, he flies from my house in
North Carolina to my sister’s home, near
Chicago.
It is doable, but it’s not easy, especially in these
days of color coded alerts.
When we make the airline
reservations, we order wheelchair
transportation. The attendant can swiftly propel
us though security check points and down long
airport corridors more effortlessly than if we
push Dad ourselves.
This past May, I scooted up to the United
Airlines counter for my courtesy pass so that I
could accompany Dad to the gate and sit with him
until his plane departed. I also needed to get
the wheelchair attendant summoned. I had parked
Dad by a leafy, potted plant before I got in
line. I was the next customer at both stations.
However, at one counter a frazzled lady got into
an altercation with the ticketing agent and
called him ‘rude’; he replied that he was just
doing his job and could not book her changes
with her constant talking. He said, “I’ll just
stand here and you go on and tell me all you
need to say and when you are finished, I’ll type
in the information.”She began jabbering,
seemingly unaware of the sarcastic intent of his
remark. At the other kiosk & counter, there were
three very hefty women with their three, tiny
yapping dogs. The agent was bending
over backwards to accommodate their needs. At
one point, the couple behind me who was
accompanied by a US soldier asked the first clerk if
it was difficult to use the kiosk without help.
To which he barked, “If you can read, it’s
easy.”
I thought to myself: Hold
back, be patient, keep your eye on the ball,
which is getting the courtesy pass. Finally, the dogs and their owners
scurried on their way. The clerk who was exceedingly patient
with them seemed miffed when I asked for a
courtesy pass. He sighed audibly.“Do you have id?”I handed him my passport not wanting to
waste time on words. He ran it through some
machine and announced, “Oh, this is not
working.”Since my documentation was valid and
since I spied that worried look on Dad’s face, I
found my gumption.
“I get courtesy passes all the time. My dad
is quite old and is sitting over there.” I
pointed at him. “This is not a time consuming
process." He then handed me the
pass.
What I thought would take
mere moments consumed 20 minutes! Before I
entered the ticketing line, I told Dad what I
had to do. Trouble is he forgets anything I tell
him after ten seconds. So, I swiveled my head around every half
minute to glimpse my aged father shifting his
weight and darting his eyes around with a
frightened expression, searching for me. I knew
he was going to get jittery soon and start
complaining.
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