When landed in Los Angeles, we headed for the gate, to request the seat with the bassinet, but there was a couple already waiting with their infant. We asked them if they were waiting to request the bassinet seat and they were. When I originally booked the tickets, I made sure that I called the airline to ask if we needed to sit in specific seats in order to be able to use the bassinet. The phone representative told me that it didn’t matter where we sat, that they would bring the bassinet to us. It appeared that this wasn’t the case. We ended up talking to the couple a little while and found out that they were, in fact, traveling to Japan as well and they were from Berkeley. The woman’s name was Lauren and her husband was Patrick, and the baby’s name was Marvin. Instantly, I went to my childhood and thought Marvin the Martian. He was a cute kid, though.
As we were talking about what we had planned for our trips, like a bolt of lightning, I instantly remembered that I didn’t pack our rail pass vouchers. I looked in my backpack and I couldn’t find them anywhere. I visualized the last place that I saw them and then I knew that they were on the shelf below my computer desk. I quickly dropped out of the conversation and called the Japan Rail help desk and left a message. I began explaining over voicemail, that I left the passes, knowing very well that their policy was not to reissue lost and stolen vouchers. The only thing that I could think to do was to call Elizabeth’s mom. Maybe she could see if there was anyway that she could ship them and have them arrive before we needed them, in less than two days. If nothing else, I needed her to confirm that I actually left them, where I thought that I did.
As soon as she picked up the phone, I apologized for my rude, yet direct attitude earlier and then explained the importance of the rail passes. I asked her if she was at our house and able to look to see if they were by the desk. She went to the desk and pulled out the two envelopes and inside the first envelope was the vouchers and everything that came with the package. I told her that we need them for our train trip on October 20th, that we would be arriving on the 18th, and that the 19th was the last day that we could realistically receive them. She asked when our plane was departing and suggested driving them up to LAX. Unfortunately, unless she took a helicopter, she wouldn’t arrive quick enough.
I texted her the address of the hotel, where we were staying and she immediately took the envelope to the post office. She texted me that a postal clerk told her that the envelope wouldn’t arrive until the 24th. So, she went back and called FedEx and UPS to find out, if they could deliver it sooner. FedEx told her that they could guarantee that it would arrive in Japan on October 19th. In spite of the fact that she thought that they’d better start delivering the package, right away, their policy is that they don’t start their delivery until 5pm.
I was fairly confident that the package would arrive on time and I had moved on to trying to find an American Airlines employee, who could help us reserve a bassinet for Escher. I went to a different gate, where I saw an employee typing on a computer. I asked her if she could help us reserve the bassinet and she declined. She explained that it could only be reserved at the gate, in which the flight was to be taking off and that no one would arrive until about an hour before boarding. I thought this was ridiculous, because all of the computer systems should be linked, but complied anyway. I was still about an hour away, so Elizabeth, the couple, and I dispersed from the area and grabbed food or magazines or whatever we needed before our trip.
Elizabeth nursed Escher, while waiting on hold with the bank, and I ordered some Sammy’s Wood Fired pizza, because what better breakfast before an overseas trip than a wood-fired pizza made in the LAX food court.
When the representative arrived, I quickly headed towards the desk, waiting behind someone that had been standing nearby. Lauren and Patrick came over shortly after. Remembering their kindness when we arrived at the gate, I let them ahead of me in line, even though, there was a strong possibility that there would only be one bassinet available. I overheard the representative tell them that someone had booked the seat that was required to use the bassinet. That person would have to agree to switch their seat, and then they would have to pay to upgrade to that seat. I was hopeful that they would decline to upgrade and then I would be rewarded.
The representative told them to wait to be called, and then signaled me to walk forward. It told her that I was also there to request a bassinet. She shook her head and informed me that there was only one bassinet available on the flight, and if the person agreed to give up their seat, that it would go to the couple. I pierced my lips, shook my head, and took my seat. I guess that we would have to take turns holding Escher as planned, which wasn’t a big surprise in the first place.
When the couple were called back up and pulled out their credit card, Patrick looked over at me and shrugged his shoulders, as if to say, “Sorry dude, that’s how it goes.” But there were no hard feelings, he was there when I first got there, so I wasn’t going to be a dick and cut ahead, just because he was a stranger. I was going to Japan, where mindfulness is a part of life, and I didn’t need to start off my journey being any more selfish than I already had.
I sat enjoying my pizza, as the crowd gathered around the gate area. Elizabeth had hidden a few rows of chairs over to hide that she was nursing Escher, but started to perk up when she heard that it would be time for us to board. When they called for people traveling with infants, we gathered our items and headed to front. When we stepped on the plane, we head for the very back, passing the luxurious first class seats, which might as well be a studio apartment at the front of the plane.
Our seats were in the second to last row, where somehow there were only two seats side by side, one by the window and one in the aisle. It was our own little first class style seat, even if was still narrow and didn’t offer more legroom. Elizabeth had gotten back on the phone with her bank and was going through the charges one by one. “They made another one just now!?! Just put a hold on my account! Freeze my money! I’m on a plane out of the country right now and it’s about to take off!” she shout to the person on the other end. She was put on hold and went through the whole process of the call again. Finally, she was able to get someone to help her out to a certain extent, but in the end, she basically just cancelled her debit cards, put a hold on her accounts, and left the country without access to a penny in her name. It looked like I was going to be charging everything and handing her money, so I was going to need to brace myself.
Elizabeth was furious and said, “What terrible timing.” and grinded her teeth. The flight started pulling out of the gate and she turned off her phone. She waited until we were at cruising altitude and changed all of her passwords, deleted all of her cards on Amazon and Paypal, and would be starting from scratch when she got back to the US, 10 days later.
Through most of the flight, I was exhausted and falling into my airplane travel daze. It’s that crazy feeling where I am too awake to sleep, but too tired to do much of anything, besides scroll through the in-flight entertainment. Maybe I will try to put on a movie or two, but even after 3 features, you are only half way through the 12 hour flight. I may have dozed off a little here or there. I remember watching the Pixar movie, Up, and crying during the opening montage, then playing the game Battleship against the computer, but so much of the flight was spent just watching the little plane on the tv go around the world.
It was strange that it would remain daytime during our entire flight and even though we received meal on the plane that represented dinner and breakfast, when we arrived in Tokyo it was around 2pm the next day. Somehow it felt like I had been up way longer than I had been, because I was barely able to sleep on the plane.