I didn’t mind waking up at two-thirty in the morning. Or the three hour bus ride. Or the five hour wait at the airport. The revolting food at the airport wasn’t that bad. Even the fact that everybody spoke Italian and couldn’t understand English was tolerable. But once I went through security, things started to get unpleasant.
I was ready for the usual pass through: bags flat on the conveyor belt, shoes off, through the magnetometer, get your bag, leave. Simple. I waited for my bag to emerge from the machine so that I could get my things together and leave this awful place. I held my breath, and… there it was! My little black duffle bag, worn from years of meeting my expectations with every trip. But before I could be reunited with my inanimate companion, a large and somewhat intimidating security guard came between us.
            “Is this your bag?” he asked in Italian. “I need to search it…” And with that, he began to dig through my possessions. Though his hands were gloved, it still made me cringe to see a total stranger touching all of my things. He pulled out Snuggles, the stuffed cat I always brought on trips with me for good luck. “This your cat?” he asked, snickering. I remained silent, though I felt a wave of humiliation sweep throughout my whole body.
            At last, he was done. He went to zip up my bag when… SNAP! The zipper broke right off. Oblivious to what he had done, he handed me my open bag.
            So, off I went with my duffle bag, stopping along the way to pick up things that had fallen out. I found myself a seat in the crowded little area where I was to wait another two hours for my flight. I managed to find a way to keep my bag closed: the trick was to tie all the straps together just right. “This should work out just fine,” I thought, and began to pass time by flipping through an old magazine I had found on the floor.
            When the long-awaited moment for me to get on the airplane had arrived, I felt a flutter of excitement-- that is, until I was pulled aside. Now, I know those right-before-you-get-on-the-plane searches are totally random, but I was still overwhelmed by that Why Me? feeling. So, I stepped up to the table.
“Open your bag, please,” the man said in a tone that made me wonder why he bothered to even say “please”. He stared at me with great impatience as I struggled to open the bag which had taken so much time and effort to close. Once again, every corner of my poor little bag was being searched. When he was done, he pulled his hands out in such a way that my bag, which was on the edge of the table, fell to the ground, its contents spilling out all over the place.
The man seemed anything but phased. “All right. Done. ” he said, leaving me to scoop all of my belongings up in my arms. I reached for Snuggles, only to find a three-year-old clutching her tightly. “Um, excuse me, little kid. That's mine,” I said. “No! Mio gatto!” she yelled in reply. Her mother gave me a nasty look, and led her child down the jetway. I gave up, going back to the picking up my personal belongings from the filthy airport floor.
Holding my boarding pass with my teeth, I at last stepped onto the plane. It was one of those large multi-level things that you usually only see in movies. I climbed up the tiny staircase to find a rather cozy little space. The leather seats were in rows of two on each side of the aisle. I sat down in my seat by the window, and found the cushion to be more comfortable than the furniture at my house. I had a surprising amount of leg room, and even a personal TV!
“Can I get you a drink, miss? Perhaps a snack?” asked the friendly flight attendant who greeted me. I asked for a cup of coffee. “Certainly. I'll just need to check your boarding pass.” I handed it to her, and her cheery smile faded. “You are in the wrong seat. This is First Class. You belong downstairs.”
Down I went with my armful of belongings and found myself stepping into a nightmare. I was greeted by a chorus of screaming babies as I looked over hundreds of itchy-looking seats that were smooshed together. I pushed my way through the sea of obnoxious passengers and found my seat: 52B. I was in between a cranky old lady and a mother with a toddler on her lap. “This is going to be fun,” I thought, as the little kid began to put my hair in his mouth.
The take-off was like something out of an action movie. Not in a fun, suspenseful way, but in an obnoxious, cheesy, “the end is near” sort of way. You know, in that scene where all hope is lost, right before the hero comes in. Except in this movie, the hero never came.
A few seats behind me, I could hear a pathetic sobbing sound. I looked over, expecting to see another bratty kid, and was surprised to see a grown man. “We’re going to die! We’re going to die!” he wailed, flapping his arms as some flight attendants and nearby passengers tried without success to calm him down. From the sickening smell which lingered in the air, I could tell someone nearby was throwing up. “Ugh, that's just
disgus-” I hadn't even finished my thought when the tray table on the seat fell down and smacked me in the face. The mother beside me offered me a wrinkled gray handkerchief. I didn't know why, until the blood from my nose started dripping onto my lap.
When the kid next to me finally stopped shrieking, I figured I'd get some sleep. That, however, seemed to be too much to hope for, as the old lady next to me kept babbling about something in Japanese. When I didn’t respond to whatever it was she was saying, she pounded her fist on the arm rest and start yelling. “Lady, I don’t know what it is that you’re talking about. I can’t understand you. I don’t speak- Oh, forget it. You don’t know what the hell I’m saying, do you?” She laughed, then went right back to her cheerful chattering. Just when I thought she'd never shut her mouth, I was delighted to notice that she had dozed off (though I had to ignore the drool that was trickling out of her mouth.)
I almost slept through the whole eight-hour flight. I say “almost” because every now and then, the Japanese lady would wake up, poke me with a bony finger and start talking again. I turned my body away from her, only to have my shoulder be swatted at.
I woke up to find that we were descending, and that we would be on the ground soon. I had been in Italy so long that the beautiful city Boston seemed unfamiliar to me, but I knew I would adjust to being back in America. I began to feel thankful that this nightmare was only a half-hour bus ride away from being over. Soon I would be safe at home, away from annoying security people, chatty old people and noisy children. I would, at last, be able to... An announcement in Italian came over the loudspeaker and interrupted my thoughts:
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. This is your captain speaking. It is 11:00PM. Please wait for the Fasten Seatbelt sign to be turned off and remain seated until the plane has come to a complete stop. We hope you had a pleasant flight. Enjoy your stay in Tokyo!”