I had to head out to the west coast for business – again. Given my departure time, I was unable to find a direct, non-stop flight from BWI to Los Angeles and had to make a stop in Salt Lake City. After over 8 and ½ hours of travel time, I finally touched down at LAX last night shortly before 8PM PST.
Instead of taking a cab to my hotel, I decided to take the Super Shuttle. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve done that. But, I’d heard that the cab fare would be almost $50 while the Super Shuttle was only $16. As I’m always looking out for our shareholders, I thought that I’d do them a favor and take the Super Shuttle.
I quickly found my way to the Super Shuttle pick-up zone. I asked the employee there how long it would be until the van arrived and how long the trip downtown would be. She told me it wouldn’t be more than a 10 minute wait and that the ride was only 35 minutes. That didn’t seem too bad. As luck would have it, the van pulled up in less than 5 minutes. “How great is this?” I asked myself. I happily loaded my carry-on into the back and hopped on board.
There had been three of us waiting in line when the van pulled up to our stop and now it was just the three of us in the van. “This isn’t too bad,” I thought to myself.
The van had three passenger benches. I was the last of the three passengers to get on board and, when I did, the middle bench was unoccupied. So, I sat there. That was directly in front of a young Chinese woman. As I was taking my seat, I saw her dialing a number on her cell phone. I figured she was letting someone know that she’d boarded the van and would be at her final destination shortly. That seemed reasonable.
The driver of the van asked for my last name and my destination. He typed them into his on-board computer and off we went – all the way to Terminal 2. You see, Southwest is in Terminal 1. I’d forgotten that LAX has 7 terminals. I was now trapped on board as the van continued its pick-up run. We picked up passenger Fitzgerald in Terminal 2. At Terminal 3, we picked up passenger Schmidt. We skipped Terminal 4. At Terminal 5, we picked up passenger Monje. He got the front seat, right next to the driver. Then, it was on to Terminal 6, where we picked up passenger Chittenden. Finally, at Terminal 7, we picked up passenger Jeffries.
By now, I’d been in the van for nearly 20 minutes. We had 8 passengers. I thought we’d completed our run through all 7 terminals. Not quite. Our driver (I’d by now learned that his name was John) announced that he had room for one more and had been called back to Terminal 1! “You have got to be kidding me,” I thought. But, there we were, getting into the “Return to Terminal” lane so our van could circle back to the beginning of the route. As we crawled to a stop at the Terminal 1 loading zone, sure enough, there was one passenger waiting. She boarded the van and sat down next to me. John asked for her name and destination. In a voice with some sort of European accent, she announced “Ospendlamadanp.” At least that’s what it sounded like to me. The guy in front of me actually laughed out loud when she said it. Poor John, the driver. “Could you spell that for me?” he asked. After several attempts, he seemed satisfied that he’d captured it reasonably accurately.
Finally, we were off to downtown.
By now 35 minutes had gone by. When the woman at the pick-up zone told me the ride would be just 35 minutes, I didn’t realize that she meant that’s how long it would take to leave the terminal! Who knew how long it would take to get to my hotel?
Remember that young Chinese woman who was dialing her phone when I got on board? Have I mentioned that, the entire time we were driving around picking up passengers, she had been carrying on a loud cell phone conversation? In Chinese? It took every ounce of self-control I could muster to not turn around and ask her to just please be quiet. While I don’t understand a word of Chinese, it was very easy to follow her conversation. She was providing a blow-by-blow of either the trip she’d just completed or the trip on which she was embarking. I know this because her side of the conversation went like this (in Chinese, may I remind you): “Blah-blah-blah-blah-blah San Jose. Blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-ski diving. Blah-blah-blah-blah-blah San Francisco. Blah-blah-blah-blah-blah Bryce. Blah-blah-blah-blah-blah parasailing. Blah-blah-blah-blah-blah San Diego. Blah-blah-blah-blah-blah hiking.” Are there really no Chinese words for ski diving, parasailing, and hiking? Apparently not.
After finally leaving the airport, there wasn’t much traffic on the freeway. The lovely young Chinese woman kept up her conversation. I was now sitting on my hands so that one of them wouldn’t “accidentally” reach back and punch her. My traveling companion Ospendlamadanp must have found that incessant chatter to be soothing as she quickly nodded off, only to quickly startle herself back awake after her head landed on my shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “No problem,” I said, “It’s been a long day.” Five minutes later, Ospendlamadanp was asleep again and, soon enough, her head landed on my shoulder. “I did it again!” she exclaimed apologetically as she woke up and hurriedly sat upright. By this point, I could only laugh.
I did make it to my hotel eventually. Believe it or not, I was the second passenger to be dropped off by the van. Thank you, Jesus! It had been 1 hour and 10 minutes since I first got in line at the Super Shuttle pick-up spot at Terminal 1. I hope somebody appreciates that $34 I saved the company.
This is where the magic happens.
