NYC – LA
I’ve learned that hidden city flying makes you feel a pretty decent array of emotions. Mostly not fun ones.
You’re turning the airport experience, which is already bad enough as it is, and dialing it up a couple of notches.
Notches your uninsured heart and arse would prefer not to go.
If they force you to check your carry on bag, then you’re in all sorts of trouble. You certainly can pull a hissy fit and demand it back, but if you’re British then your DNA most likely does not offer this option so you just have to silently accept your fate.
If they don’t, then you’re golden. You’ve just saved yourself a bunch of cash and gained a modicum of triumph for beating the system. That is unless you have some weird emotional makeup that welcomes this activity with lashings of guilt.
Guilt which drives you to message the airline declaring that you have suddenly fallen ill, and that making the second leg isn’t a good idea until a doctor in LA gives you the go ahead. And then updating them saying you’re still in the waiting room but hoping to make an evening flight.
And then calling them because they haven’t returned your messages and being put on hold for thirty minutes, until you finally stop and think that maybe, just maybe, they don’t care.
Unlike the British politician, sitting pretty in the upper-class section on my flight, who cared so much about me and my relationship with Europe that he valiantly fought for Brexit. What a hero.
Having almost walked into it, I can verify that Michael Gove’s face doesn’t just look like one, it actually is a smacked arse.
I bet he didn’t bother to let the airline know that he was skipping the second leg.
LA
I’m back to where I started.
Back to the dreams.
Back to being around the beautiful people and sticking out like a pasty white thumb.
Back to strange places.
Back to…oh wait, there is something new.
I’m renting a room in a new neighbourhood.
And this time the host is much more present. And likes to share her thoughts.
And who feels it’s important to direct my delightfully polite introductory conversation, over a jet lagged 7 a.m. breakfast, towards immigration control.
And feels I should be warned that the Mexicans doing construction nearby might well be tempted to rob me.
And who doesn’t want the kitchen sink to be wet after I’ve washed and dried up my cereal bowl. Because Frank Sinatra’s mother told her off for it once and it stuck.
Ah, balls.
So much the journey ending here.
This story though I’ll put a fork in.
It’s worth noting that, rather fittingly, her house is situated right by a cliff edge.
– (This is in reference to my earlier mention of stories that end dramatically, not me suggesting I’m thinking about pushing her off it. Not at all. What kind of person do you think I am?
She’s over 80, and certainly wouldn’t join me in a walk to there anyway.
Well, unless I rip up bits of racist paraphernalia and use them as a breadcrumb trail I suppose.
But that’s awful. I’m not the type to even entertain such a thing.
Plus it’s far too windy over there. She’d be scuttling about all over the place trying to pick them up. And I’d just get fined and become known as a fascist litterer.)
I guess it’s a good thing everyone stopped reading on page one.
