Good Riddens

I am guilty of having felt excited when the MTA strike began on Tuesday. Since I spent the last 20 years in Oregon during the winter, I liken it to the rare glee of discovering a 1/4 inch of snow on the ground every couple years and having school canceled because of it. Except, there were no such benefits. In fact, like most other New Yorkers who were unlucky enough to need to be somewhere, I was punished. Silly New Yorkers.


You see, I have been dreaming of Portland every day since Thanksgiving. Something about eating holiday food and seeing David made me blissfully nostalgic for Christmas in Oregon. My expectation has been mounting and I have longed for every precious moment of fresh air, no honking horns, sipping Stumptown coffee in Coffee Plant, and eating lamb and Sally's berry pies. Last night MTA came very close to disturbing this dream. Very close.

I have experienced perfect timing before. This was bigger than perfect timing. This was borrowed time. It was the impossible moment when you simultaneously realize you are too late and just in time. I was told the former, but I knew that I would end up with the latter. And I did. But first let's back up.

At 4:30 p.m., one hour after finishing my last final, I was sitting in the lobby of my dorm with Emily waiting for the Super Shuttle I had reserved to JFK. The van was already 45 minutes late and I nervously gulped down my rum and ginger beer drink. It was day 2 of the MTA strike. Usually, 4 hours would be a gratuitous amount of time to get to the airport, but not today. Traffic was nearly stopped on every avenue and crosstown through-street. When I finally did get in the shuttle, it took 30 minutes just to turn two corners. I was going to miss my plane.

I cried hysterically all the way down Broadway. The driver didn't really speak English, but I interpreted his comments as "get a god damn grip lady." I didn't. We spent two hours circling Manhattan trying to make his other pickups only to find out that they had given up on him. I was the only rider in his 12-person van, we were wasting time looking for people who weren't home, and meanwhile every desperate person trying to get to the airport was frantically waving or pounding on the van. It felt like a scene out of a horror movie.

At 6:30 p.m., the last poor soul this driver was suppose to pickup got in the van. Pablo climbed in the way-back and the two of us, plus the driver, entered the Queens-Midtown tunnel at 6:43 p.m. My plane was leaving in 48 minutes and we were barely out of Manahttan. I had two large suitcases of presents, a case of my homemade pasta sauces on my lap, and my backpack overloaded. I struggled with opposing feelings of freedom and dread as we sped toward the Van Wick Expressway. Was it possible I could catch my plane on one of the busiest travel days of the year with all this stuff to bring through security? I called the Jet Blue hotline and they told me probably not. Oh, and by the way there was only one flight a day to Portland and the next one was sold out. I started to cry again.

It was 7:21 when we pulled up to the nightmarish scene at the Jet Blue terminal. My plane departed in 9 minutes and I had no idea how I was going to get my bags to the ticket counter, let alone convince them I should be able to board the plane. Pablo's plane departed in 24 minutes, but he was kind, or stupid enough to drag one of my bags inside for me.

And now we reach that impossible moment. It's 7:24 and the Jet Blue staff is telling me I missed the plane. I know as I pound my forehead against the counter that they are both right, and that they are wrong. Even they must know it because one of them has my boarding pass, another is putting tags on my baggage, and a third is crawling over the counter with a walkie talkie in one hand and my sleeve in the other.

We gate #7 one minute before departure and as she shouted Merry Christmas, the doors closed behind me. I realized that not a single person in JFK had checked my I.D. or asked me what the hell was in my 12 jars. I think this is as close as I will ever come to a Christmas miracle, or disaster.