Whilst filling out my passenger locator form on Tuesday, I learned that my first name in Czech means Eagle. Not all that bad, I thought, considering that my first name in Hebrew means something far worse. Suffice to say that when I was coaching at Princeton University in the late 90’s, my Israeli co-workers nick-named me ‘Tip-Tip’. I’ll just leave that there.

I started this blog on Wednesday afternoon, but started feeling quite unwell, so took a break to do an antigen test, which came up positive for Covid. Did another, a few hours later – just to be sure to be sure. Again, positive. On Thursday, I got a PCR test – also ‘positivni’ as they say here in Prague. Still, I managed to escape it for 2 years, so consider myself lucky. My apologies for the delay in getting this second part published. You might be happy to read that there IS a third part to this story. It’ll give you something to look forward to…

I made it to the Czech Republic, on Tuesday, having spent Monday evening reeling over what happened earlier that day at the airport. It’s safe to say, I picked up the dreaded virus at Dublin airport, given that it has a 48-hour incubation period. So I feel justified in placing ALL the blame on the red lipstick staff member who forced me to spend far more time in Terminal One than was necessary. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Things didn’t get much better after I left the toilet at Gate 110. Tears still flowing, I was sent towards security to make my way back to the ticket desk. Meandering against the flow of people, dragging my pink carry on behind me, I bumped awkwardly into many smiling passengers, all excited for their upcoming trips. But when I arrived at security, a young, quite attractive male (that’s saying something, coming from me) informed me that he was new there, but quite sure that I couldn’t exit through security. When I asked “then where DO I exit?” in my most polite attempt (NOT really), he directed me to another security officer who very confidently told me I should make my way to gate 217, and follow the signs for baggage claim. So off I wandered in a daze, even my carry-on seemed a bit bewildered, and headed in the direction of where I’d just come from. Contemplating stopping for a beer, I fantasized about twitching my nose, or clicking my heels, just to transport myself to Prague.

Exiting through baggage claim and into the arrival’s hall, I found myself chuckling. I was only up in departures a few hours before. It was like the twilight zone for a brief moment. I headed for the Ryan Air ticket desk, and luckily there was only one other person in front of me. I admit, I was still disgusted at the whole palaver of what had occurred, so when the woman beckoned me towards her with disdain (I’m sure she had disdain – perhaps they’d called ahead to tell her I was on my way), I stood at her desk with my backpack on, phone and passport in hand, and here’s how it went.

“Hello, I just missed my flight to Prague and I was told to come here to arrange to be on the next flight”, as I said this, I noticed a middle-aged man in a Captains uniform standing next to me. “Missed my flight, I bet that never happens to you”, I said.  He smiled and nodded.

“Boarding pass”, blond woman with hair stuck to her head raised her hand at me, but looked dead ahead at her screen.

“They’re so nice here, aren’t they?” I directed my comment at the handsome pilot, “so warm and friendly”, I added handing her my phone which was displaying my boarding pass.

Tapping away with fingernails so long, they might kill a small animal, she placed my phone back on the counter. No eye contact was made.

“It’s going to cost you 100 euros to change, and the next flight is tomorrow at 17:45”, she continued staring and tapping, tapping and staring.

“Fine”, I said, “they really know how to treat customers well here, don’t they?”, the handsome pilot was getting more and more amused. Either that, or he was dying to get away.

I handed 100 euros cash to Too-Much-Hairspray lady who obviously went to the same makeup artist as Red-Lipstick-Girl. She managed to avert her eyes away from her screen just enough to look at the cash.

“We don’t accept cash”, she turned to her co-worker to share a joke about something or other.

My stress levels were getting high now as I glanced at Handsome Pilot, who did roll his eyes and twitched a little. I believe he wanted the ground to swallow him up.

“So pleasant to deal with, aren’t they?” I continued, knowing well that the sarcasm dripping out of me was forming a puddle around my feet.

I opened up my Apple wallet using my face ID, quite surprised that it recognised the puffiness around my eyes. Debit card on the screen, presenting it to the friendliest sales assistant ever, I half suspected what would happen next.

Taking my phone in her hand and glancing at it, she said “does this have all the numbers of your card on it? We don’t do contactless”.

“Jesus fucking Christ”, this time I wasn’t sarcastic, and luckily the pilot had made his escape. My actual debit card was in my purse which was inside my handbag which was inside my backpack. God forbid Ryan Air would let me carry my handbag outside my backpack – that might cost me another 100 euro. Sighing heavily, I ripped my backpack off my back, dropping my phone and passport, cursing up a storm under my breath. Opening the zip on my backpack, I dug around for my handbag, tried opening that as quickly as possible – of course it was stuck – then yanked my bloody purse out, opened that, ripped out my debit card and slid it under the glass to the woman who somehow managed to keep her eyes focused on everything but me. At this point, the entire contents of my backpack, handbag, and purse were on the floor. As I bent down to gather everything up, I heard her say:

“I’m emailing your new itinerary now, but you’re going to have to check in all over again tomorrow”.

“Say that again”, I pretended not to hear.

“I’m emailing your new itinerary now, but you’re going to have to check in all over again tomorrow”.

“Sorry, I didn’t catch that”. I might as well make this as painful for her as it was for me.

“I’m emailing your new itinerary now, but…”

“Yes, yes, I heard you, Robotic Features”. Now THAT WAS rude of me. Sometimes I have no filters I suppose.

This Eagle landed safely on Tuesday night. It may appear that I have done nothing but bad-mouth airline employees in the last two blogs. NOT ALL AIRLINE EMPLOYEES are like this! In fact, on my flight back to Prague, there was the loveliest flight attendant named Luciando, who insisted on calling me a lady, and who got such shocking abuse from a drunk passenger, that I had to give him a hug on the way out. (Damn, did he have Covid?).

I also promised in Part One of this story that I’d tell you all about a job I had as a ground staff employee for JetBlue in Boston, circa 2005. This job was so against the grain and essence of my very being, that it was comical. AND I met some of the BEST people on earth there. But I can’t. Not today. There’s SO much to tell you about this but my Covid brain is completely overwhelmed right now, so if you don’t mind, please check back in about three days. I promise it’ll be worth the wait.