The Fury returned today. As much as I hate to admit it, I allowed it back into my life. It has been a while since the last visit and I have been enjoying life without it. Fortunately I recognised it coming and was able to deal with it reasonably in the circumstances. I caught myself digging in my pocket for the Nokia 1100 to stab someone in the head. Ok so that’s not reasonably but it seemed appropriate at the time.
I woke up early, 4am, for my 9am flight. I agree 4am does seem a little early but things do happen a little slower out here in the undeveloped world. To call it a developing country would mean that it is improving. I will just call it undeveloped. I got to the airport at 6am and the wait started. I saw the hours ticking away and with every bead of sweat that ran down my back and with every mosquito that landed on me, my patience wore thinner.
Eventually I got to the front of queue number one, and that is where I stood for an hour. The corrupt security were allowing people through who had blatantly paid cash to “handlers” right in front of them as if it was the correct thing to do. Queue number one did not move while queue number two 20 meters away was still full. Since all these people were being let in on the side, queue number two maintained its size and therefore queue number one did not move. I was able to maintain some level of acceptance of this whole situation until people behind me started getting mad, seemingly AT me and telling me to just move forward and ignore the security.
After barking some retort back at these annoying people, I approached security to find out what the hell was going on and to put it mildly, his response of, “I don’t know what you mean, everything is normal now go back and wait” wound me up something stupid. Fury, Security guard, Security guard, Fury. They were introduced. Fury was back. Fortunately I regained composure when I realised that calling this guy names and telling him his fortune was probably only going to land me up as a guest of the state in a little concrete room somewhere. I forced a very sarcastic smile and walked back to the front of queue number one. Defeated.
When security finally realised that all the “paying” customers had gone through, he started to let us through. The rest of the formalities inside where as to be expected. Slow and frustrating. It was a relief to finally get on that plane with airconditioning and into my seat where after a minute or two of sorting my stuff out and getting my breath back, I fell asleep.
I woke up 2 hours later. We were still on the ground! I just shook my head. I overheard someone asking what the delay was and the supposed reason was they had to wait for a passenger. He must have been one HELL of a “paying” customer!
Needless to say, by the time we got airborne and eventually arrived in Lisbon, my connecting flight to Paris had departed. Let the fun and games begin again. Air Portugal (TAP) have been really good about it all. They say that they are ALWAYS late coming in from Luanda. They gave me food, hotel, taxi and phone card vouchers and made necessary arrangements for flights tomorrow. I just smiled and went through the motions. No need to get upset now. The Fury was gone and I was happy again.
Tonight I sleep in Lisbon. I will still make Houston tomorrow night!
Goodnight
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