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John Steinbeck, "America and Americans"

Started August 1 � Finished August 2, 2002; 224 pages. Posted 20 August 2002

(This is part 1 of an 18-part story. Part 5 is here. And here is where you find part 10. Part 15? Right here. And the end of this entirely too long story is located here. After that, you�re on you�re own.)

My flight leaves on August 2, at the ungodly hour of 7:20 a.m. in the ungodly city of Oakland. Obviously, I�m not going to find anybody who is willing to take me to Oakland at four in the morning, my designated check-in time. So I strike up a brilliant plan:

Smoking Buddy, my former roommate, now lives in Pleasanton. He�s been talking about having a drinking night out for a while, so I figure we can go get drunk at my friend�s bar in San Francisco and then he can drop me off at the airport when the bars close. This would leave me with a reasonable drunken wait of four to five hours before I can get on the plane.

We make the arrangements, but on that day he calls me up to ask if there�s any way I can get up to Pleasanton so he doesn�t have to drive all the way down here just to pick me up and bring me back. I get this request while I�m at work, and worse, I�ll be stuck there until 9:30 at night. I scramble to find a ride and finally succeed at about 6:30.

But traffic takes longer than I would have expected, so we don�t get to Smoking Buddy�s house until a little past 11 p.m. Smoking Buddy is now reluctant to go all the way to San Francisco for such a short period of time, so we hit a dive bar in downtown Oakland. And it�s a pretty cool place. They make strong whiskey and cokes, there�s a pool table, and the crowd is much more diverse than what you would find at something like The Caravan. Last call comes around, and we stumble into the street.

We walked around the lake, Smoking buddy using the cold air to sober him up, me misunderstanding everything he was talking about. Finally, we go to drop off his friend, but then he asks if I would mind if he takes a quick nap, promising to get me to the airport by 5 a.m. His friend brings out an alarm clock, which he sets.

�You sure you have it set right, yeah?� I say.

�Yeah,� he answers, �it�s all set.�

You can see what�s coming, can�t you?

So, a little past 6:30 I�m being shaken awake. We pile into the car, bleary eyed, not saying anything as I stare at the dashboard clock ticking the minutes away. We get to the airport at a little past 6:45. I leap out of the car at the Sunny Excursions booth (actual names of companies are slightly altered to avoid being sued), grab my bags and powerwalk into the airport, only to see a zeroxed sign saying the Sunny Excursions booth has been moved to the other side of the airport.

I walk as quickly as possible, but still being careful to not arouse suspicions of the National Guard that have now replaced the Hare Krishna�s at airports around the country. I find the counter and fortunately, there isn�t much of a line. I can see my plane just outside the gate, off to the side and just past the security checkpoint, which is surprisingly deserted. It is now 6:55 a.m.

I push up to the counter. �I�m picking up a ticket, cause the travel agent misspelled my last name on my old ticket,� I say. �Here�s my old ticket, and here�s my ID.�

The clerk looks over a pile of paperwork. �Spell your name for me,� he asks.

�C-A-R-R-I-C-O,� I say. He continues to shuffle some papers.

�I don�t see anything under that name.�

�Look again.�

�I have one for a Dean Carriko, with a K.�

Flashback to a week ago. My ticket arrived in the mail and I noticed that the name on the ticket read K-A-R-R-I-K-O. I called the travel agent to see if there were going to be any problems. She wasn�t sure, explaining that it was only her second week with the company. Eventually she called back, stating that I would have to pick up the replacement ticket at the counter.

�And let me just confirm this,� she said. �It�s D-E-A-N C-A-R-R-I-K-O.�

�No! It�s C-A-R-R-I-C-O. There are no K�s in my name anywhere!�

�Oh, well, I don�t think it will be a problem. I�ll call them again, but unless you hear from me, everything should be fine.�

So now I�m at the airport and this guy won�t give me my ticket because of one misspelled letter. �Look,� I say, �here�s my old ticket. Here�s the bill for the ticket. Here�s the credit card that I paid the bill with. And here�s my identification.�

�I�m sorry sir, but name changes have to be taken care of through your travel agent.�

�Why? I�m just going to call on the telephone, and then they would have to call you. Anybody could call on the telephone, but here I am with a dozen forms of identification. And see that?� I point to the side gate. �That�s MY plane!�

�Let me get my manager.�

Five minutes later, the manager comes back, listens to my story, and finally hands me the ticket.

�Thank you,� I say, �Now, I need to check this bag.�

�For what?�

�So I can get on the plane.�

�It�s too late. The plane has done its final boarding call.�

�What?!?�

�That flight just completed its final boarding call.�

�Ooooooookay.�

Deep breaths. I am the master of all taoism.

�So now what do I do?� I ask.

�Well, the next flight is totally booked, so you need to be here tomorrow at 4:30 in the morning, and we�ll put you on standby. And the date change on your ticket will have a $50 processing fee.�

�Can�t I just process the date change now?�

�The flight for tomorrow is sold out, sir. But you can wait on standby which is done on a first come, first serve basis.�

�So you�re going to charge me 50 bucks to change a flight date that I may not even be able to get on?�

�That�s correct sir, but since your ticket is a date change you will have priority over the normal standby passengers. But there are other people with date changes as well, so again, it will be a first come, first serve basis. Your best bet is to be here right when the ticket box opens, around 4:30 a.m.�

�Okay, but since I�m here, let�s take care of this name misspelling. I don�t want to have any problems tomorrow, or at least not any more than I�m already having.�

�Name changes have to be handled through your travel agent.�

I walk away from the ticket counter, watching my plane as it taxies away from the building, soon moving out of sight. It�s now 7:45 a.m. My travel agent�s office doesn�t even open for another hour and fifteen minutes. I sit down to finish the last hundred pages of the Steinbeck book, which consists mostly of little stories and folklore about life in America. Most of the stories have a cute point at the end.

I am in no mood for cute.


Rating: Worth used prices.

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