The sky has turned a fantastic shade of blue. My favourite colour. There’s a lone cloud passing overhead slowly, taking its time to get a look at the view below. A single seagull perched on the topmost corner of the building opposite me, gives pause to this glorious day. In the distance, the Irish sea ripples softly against the shore. A breeze touches my face and I’m glad of it to cool me down after the bloody ordeal I’ve just been through.

It’s Monday afternoon, and I’m back in Malahide. Missed my flight, would you believe.

I’m notoriously early for the airport, sometimes to a fault, and it often upsets the people I am travelling with.

“We don’t need to be three hours early!”, I’m frequently told.

“Just in case, you never know how long the security line might be”, I reply.

“You’ve got the bloody Fast Track”. Do I detect a slight pang of annoyance?

“True, but you never know how far away the gate is”, I grab my suitcase and wave to the Uber outside the window. “Come on, let’s go”, I urge gently, perhaps a bit smugly.

“We’re in Dublin for god’s sake, not JFK”. God they’re so moody today.

And off we go. That’s always how it’s been. And it’s how it was earlier today. 

Having spent the weekend at Fitzpatrick’s Castle Hotel at my first ever Writers Retreat, I was on a high from motivation and having met most of the people in my on-line writing group for the first time. Led by Vanessa O’Louglin Fox (aka Sam Blake Best-Selling Author), and Maria McHale (aka ball of steel provider/Journalist), it was by far one of the highlights of the last two years. These two ladies are the reason I started a blog, and the reason I’m getting better and better at writing. My writing.ie Writers Ink group is the reason my memoir is on hold, and my first novel is almost ready to be reviewed.

I arrived at Dublin airport about two hours too early for my return flight to Prague. Not having to wear a mask anymore throughout the airport gave an unusual sense of freedom. I was aware that my mask was stuffed in my right jeans pocket, for arrival into Prague. I admit I bought the Fast Track (my partner will roll her eyes at that one). Placing all my toiletries on the tray, next to my laptop which was just dying to be opened, I motioned to the security guard that I can’t go through the scanner, as I have a loop recorder inserted in my chest. It’s old habit now. The female guard puts her gloves on, beckons me forward, and I spread my arms out to either side, like Jesus. This time I smacked an elderly man in the face as he scurried to get by me. I apologised profusely as the guard tried to hide her laugh behind her mask, waving her wand up and down my legs.  

“Have you anything sharp on you, love?” her familiarity was warm.

“Only my sense of humour”, I replied thinking I was hilarious. Thankfully, she thought so too.

I gathered up my belongings, and began the 9-minute walk to Gate 101. Securing a sandwich from WH Smith and a packet of Smokey Bacon Tayto (can’t remember the last time I had a packet of those), I began researching all the newspapers and magazines I could pitch a story to. Immersed in it all, I spat out email after email to journalists and editors, asking if they’d be interested in one of my clever stories.

And that’s when it happened. Maybe it was the stale Smokey bacon crisps that didn’t go well with my flat white. Maybe it was the fact that I was at Gate 101, instead of Gate 110. But when I heard “Flight FR 7326 to Prague is closing”, my laptop and I bolted head-first onto the people mover, sprinting as fast as I could, my mother’s bright pink carry-on suitcase bobbing frantically behind me like a high-speed motor boat on a choppy sea.

“Anyone else for Prague?” I heard from about 30 feet away.

“YES!” I waved my passport erratically above my head, and lunged to the desk. It all happened in slow motion. One staff member had asked if there was anyone else for Prague, while the other staff member ignored that announcement and promptly closed the flight. I could see the double doors closing right before me. Out the window to my left, people were still boarding the plane.

“Sorry, I was at the wrong gate”, I panted. The first staff-member eyed me sadly, realising the second one was on a mission to get to the mirror to reapply her lipstick.

“Flights closed, sorry”, said the second staff-member.

“But she just asked if there was anyone else and I was waving at you, I’m here now”, my voice beginning to tremble as I motioned to the people still out on the runway, boarding.

“That’s your own fault”, rocky horror red lipstick girl didn’t even look at me, tapping ferociously on her keyboard.

“That’s ridiculous! She just asked if there was anyone else for the flight!” I pointed to the first staff member who wouldn’t make eye contact with me.

“It’s CLOSED. Everyone else made it, where were YOU?” she scoffed. Was she really making this personal? Is that a professional way to handle it?

“Why can’t you be nice about this?” I asked, a tear now drifting down my left cheek. Damn hormones, I hate when I get like this.

“You just told me I was ridiculous, why should I be nice to you?” she really was in a hurry to re-apply her makeup.

I did ask her name (which she refused to give) and carried on asking her to be a bit nicer to customers. To this young woman, I was the stupid passenger preventing her from getting to the break-room where presumably a new Charlotte Tilbury eye-liner was waiting to be tried out.

I take full responsibility for being late to my flight, but I wonder what Ryan Air Human Resources would think of this approach to a customer. Do they really train their staff to deal with customers this way? I was reminded of that year I spent working at JetBlue in Boston. It was a side job I’d taken on to save a bit of money. It’s a worthy story that I’ll share in Part Two of this blog.

I always try to find a silver lining in these situations. After my dismissal from Gate 110, I was bursting to go to the loo. With tears running down my face, I shuffled into one of ten available stalls. Assuming the usual squatting position (I never sit on the seats), I reached upwards to discover there was no toilet paper. A snot-ridden gasp emitted from my mouth. Of course, I would pick the one stall that didn’t have toilet paper. But then I had a genius idea. Remember that mask in my top right jeans pocket? That would do the trick. And it did. I’ll say no more.

I consider myself very lucky that I could go back to Malahide and gaze up at the plane I was supposed to be on. With the state of the world today, I have little to complain about and am quite sure I’ll make the next flight tomorrow. Stay tuned for how that all transpired…Ryan Air staff just keep getting better.