Right now, somewhere in a staff room at the Calgary airport, a loop of security footage from May 31st is being played.
I’m on it. Alone at the WestJet area. Waving the boarding pass barcode on my phone beneath the laser scanner of a Self-Check-In-and-Self-Serve-Baggage-Tag machine. Looking forlornly at the counter where not a human being is in sight. The code will not scan.
I try another machine. I try all the machines.
I sit down, stand up. Try them all again.
By now I should be comfortably through security and sallying up for a pre-flight Starbucks. Instead, I’m in the middle of a deserted terminal, luggage hung from my shoulders as though I’m plodding towards Bethlehem to be counted. And like a girl, I’m about to cry!
Why? Because, as I’m about to discover when I finally ask one of only three people to walk by in all this time, I’m in the International departures area. And of course, the people flying to Kelowna are at the other end of the airport, from which the domestic flights take off.
Yep. There’s even a sign.
The worst part is, I think this is a rerun of the last time I finished a book tour in Alberta.
“My friend Darcie…”
And I was in the hospital while this was happening. I would have left you at the right end of the terminal…
Susan! I thought about it some more, and the last time I ended up at the International terminal for a domestic flight was February before last. You dropped me off
Mend well!