O'Hare Airport is, to me, a living battleground.
I've been there several times, as a passenger and meeting passengers, and hardly ever do things go completely smoothly. I don't know if any Hollywood film directors read my blog, but I think a good post-apocalyptic science fiction movie would be about the few surviving humans taking shelter at O'Hare as the big bomb destroys civilization, then trying to leave and start a new civilization, but the airport won't let them out. It would be plausible, because, as I have learned even pre-apocalypse, it is nearly impossible to leave O'Hare Airport. It's like Hotel California, without the metaphor.
Yesterday, my friend English Kari (so-called because her name is Kari and she lives in England, and I need a way to distinguish her from my friend Carrie from high school) arrived at O'Hare for a stopover between Manchester and Atlanta. I was at work all day and couldn't make it up to the airport to see her during her mid-afternoon stay, but I gave her my cell phone number and told her that if she got stuck for any reason to let me know. We had some storms yesterday, and I heard there were delays, so I left my phone on. I didn't recieve a call, so I assumed that English Kari had made it to her destination.
I should mention at this point that I have never actually met Kari in person. I know her through an online forum, which is, ironically enough, for people who are afraid to fly. I "met" the guy who started the site while doing research for a story for my former newspaper, and he and his cohorts were so nice that I've stuck around for four years. The site has been instrumental in helping me overcome my own fear of flying, and the people on it are great. Many of them get together regularly, but I've yet to meet any of them in person.
Anyway, about 10 p.m., I logged on and found a message from Mark, the site administrator, who lives in Tennessee and had spoken to Kari. She'd told him she was stuck at O'Hare for the night; she'd tried to call me but couldn't get through. Immediately, I began trying to reach her. I tried her cell phone (some automated lady with a British accent told me that my call could not be completed); I tried paging her through the airline (no answer); I tried calling the airline's first class lounges, to see if they could get me through to the paging system (closed); I tried speaking to someone at the airport's main number, twice (the first time they transferred me to the airline's ticket reservation line, and the second time they gave me the two numbers I'd already tried and said they had no other ones). Finally, I gave up and went to bed, and I'm still not sure whether Kari got out.
Getting stuck at any airport is a bummer, but getting stuck at O'Hare seems almost inevitable. When I was 13, I was stranded there for an entire day. I'd been visiting my aunt in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and my flight to Chicago got in late, so I missed my connection. I'd never flown by myself before, so my aunt had paid to have someone escort me, and when they came to get me for the next flight I could take, the woman took me to the wrong gate. Since this was well before 9-11, and the gate agents didn't seem to know what was going on, so if I had been more bold, I might have been able to weasel my way onto the plane at that gate -- it was headed for Paris, so I was tempted to try -- but by the time I got the attention of a gate agent, my actual flight -- headed for Washington, D.C. -- had already taken off. Another employee (an old man named Floyd, who had a mole on his face and was really nice to me as I cried during the whole walk) escorted me to another gate for the last flight of the day, and finally I made it out.
But others I know have not escaped spending the night. A year ago, my mom was flying to Iowa (to see that same aunt -- for awhile I blamed her for the O'Hare phenomenon, but I think she's off the hook now) and ended up stuck for the night. She really didn't have to be stuck, though, having a daughter who lives 40 miles away and was driving to the aunt's house the next day; she ended up arriving only a short time before I did.
And it's not just passengers who have trouble. Just before my mom's incident, I made plans to meet up with a friend who had a layover at O'Hare. Hailing from Germany, she was an exchange student who stayed with my family when I was in high school, and this time, she was passing through Chicago on her way home from a visit to Kansas, where she'd spent some time in graduate school. I headed up to the airport to see her, and just as I reached our designated meeting spot, my cell phone rang. It was her, telling me she was stuck on the plane in Kansas City with no idea when she'd be taking off. I went home, although not before paying for the 10 minutes I was parked, because in the city of Chicago, nothing is ever free. One could argue that her story was about being stuck in Kansas City, not Chicago, but the point is, every time anyone I know has made O'Hare part of their travel plans, something weird happens.
I have plans to meet up with English Kari on Sunday (we plan to line dance -- she has a rule that whenever folks from the forum get together, they have to line dance, and I like that rule), when she stops at O'Hare on her way home from Atlanta, but part of me wonders if I should even bother. That airport has been no friend to me, and given past experience, I have doubts as to whether we'll actually be able to make it happen.
But really, that makes me all the more determined to go. It's not just about visiting with Kari; it's about conquering O'Hare Airport. Chicago mayor Richard Daley has been fighting to expand the already-gargantuan O'Hare, and if he succeeds, I fear the airport will just start growing on its own and take over the entire city, "feed me, Seymour" style. We must fight back before it's too late, or O'Hare won't just be the threat of the post-apocalypse; it will bring about the apocalypse itself.
So bring on your best, O'Hare Airport. Come Sunday, English Kari and I will be line dancing on your face!
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