As my husband can tell you, I swing to the dark side pretty fast. The “P” my first name starts with could just as easily stand for “Paranoia.”
That tendency of mine was triggered this past weekend, when it seemed like American Airlines was directly targeting my spouse and me while we were trying to go to Chicago.
It felt like the carrier’s staff of evil geniuses—you know, the people who make spending time in airports and on planes so uncomfortable that millions of flyers pay ridiculous amounts to upgrade themselves out of steerage and priority-pass their way through the boarding line—were plotting against us.
The pranks began before I got to the airport. In the cab on the way there, I looked down at the boarding pass on my phone and let out a gasp. “They left TSA PreCheck off my boarding pass,” I told my husband.
“Well, did you tell them you have it?” he asked in a tone suggesting he hadn’t forgotten a single screwup I’ve made over the course of our 3-decade marriage.
“Of course I did! Jeez!” I responded, leading to a fraught silence as I dug through my profile page on American’s online platform to prove my Known Traveler Number was listed there.
And it was. So take that.
At the airport I trotted over to the American Airlines counter to see if I could get the ticket fixed. But that line was daunting, so we made our way to the TSA area instead.
And there, with a grin and a wave, my husband pulled a reverse Orpheus, speeding off toward the expedited security line—without another look back—confident that this doomed Eurydice would meet him on the other side.
He left me behind in hell, is what I’m telling you.
“Good luck,” he said as he sprinted for the sparsely populated PreCheck line.
I, meanwhile, joined the huddled masses in the standard queue and inched forward for the next 40 minutes.
Reader, I don’t think it even occurred to my spouse to wait with me. We might have vowed to remain together for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, but apparently I should have added a clause somewhere in there about being mildly inconvenienced.
As betrayals go, this one was a nick rather than a stabbing, so I decided to move on in the moment and save the infraction for future use, because, let’s face it, that’s what marriage is all about. (There’s another thing that should be mentioned in wedding vows.)
The real test came about an hour later.
We had made it to the gate after the security rigmarole, but about 15 minutes after the official boarding time for our flight I noticed that screens in the gate area still didn’t display our flight information, though everyone around us seemed to be waiting for the same ride.
I glanced at the boarding pass on my phone and gave another theatrical gasp, jumped up, and began gathering my stuff in a hurry.
“What are you doing?” my husband asked with more than a touch of irritation.
“We’re at the wrong gate! We’re supposed to be at gate 13 and we’re at 23,” I barked over my shoulder as I started to move. “We’re going to miss the boarding window.”
“What are you talking about?! There have been no announcements. Nothing has changed,” he said at a volume that prompted several neighboring travelers to turn around.
Thinking I had no time to explain, I set out in a full-out sprint across the airport, assuming he’d follow. After all, he hadn’t looked back when he abandoned me in the PreCheck line, now did he?
I was right that he’d follow me when I began my mad dash through the terminal, but only to catch my arm in order to pull me to a stop and argue.
We didn’t know it in that moment, but in a bizarre snafu, the gate number listed on my husband’s electronic boarding pass differed from the gate on mine, even though we were taking the same flight.
Remember that moment in Fatal Attraction when it becomes clear that the Glenn Close character is going to do whatever it takes to break up the Michael Douglas character’s marriage? American Airlines’ diabolical gate discrepancy was the carrier’s version of boiling that bunny.
So the two of us stood in the middle of the airport, waving our phones and loudly disagreeing about the gate, each thinking the other was bonkers.
Finally, I convinced my husband to look at my phone, and he saw that it had a different number than his. We ran over to my gate, only to be told by the gate agent in that totally empty area that, no, the plane would leave from the other gate, but it was delayed.
So we trudged back to where we started, glaring at each other on the way, and got back to the first gate just at the moment when an announcement came over the loudspeaker explaining that—you guessed it!—the flight had moved to the gate we just left.
As the delay dragged on and on, reaching 7 hours before the plane finally took off, we had to do the gate do-si-do two more times.
Somehow, we remained on speaking terms—or, more accurately, squabbling terms—throughout this mishegoss, though I wish our frustration had remained focused on American Airlines, which deserved it. But when you’re in a long marriage and have watched the tides of expectations and resentments ebb and flow, sometimes the silly annoyances of daily life can feel like the fault of a spouse who couldn’t possibly be responsible for them.
We were tested again on the return flight. That involved numerous gate changes, too—five of them! All over the damn airport! And you think I’m paranoid about a multinational corporation scheming to break us up? Fine, but I still won’t be adopting a pet rabbit anytime soon.
Maybe we should consider an “airport divorce.”
As you may know, there’s a term that’s been ricocheting around the internet to describe a strategy for flying with a loved one who has a different travel style than you do.
Getting an “airport divorce” was apparently first suggested by British journalist Huw Oliver in The Sunday Times of London. Oliver wrote about how his fiancée wants to explore all corners of the airport, while he just craves a view of the departures board from a comfortable seat, beer in hand, while waiting for the flight.
To circumvent arguments, the couple now takes a temporary break at the airport, each of them going their separate ways until boarding. The idea is to avoid putting an unnecessary strain on the relationship.
My version is similar but has less to do with different travel styles than the undue stress airlines put on passengers. In the best of all possible worlds, enduring that stress together would encourage bonding. But sometimes it drives couples apart instead.
The next time my husband and I arrive at the airport, I’m likely going to tell my darling partner of 30 years that I’ll see him on the plane. I’m guessing (I know) he’ll be fine with that.
Joan Didion once wrote about taking a vacation with her family in lieu of filing for divorce. I’m considering an airport divorce to save the marriage.
