Remember The Secret, the movie/book that’s 15 minutes of fame happened back in 2006? If you exert positive thoughts to the universe, it said, you will win boundless opportunities and good fortune! My experience over the last two weeks could have easily been used in an infomercial to promote the book – an example of what happens if you defy the universe and respond to hardship with cynicism and selfishness.
Spoiler alert: The universe will pummel your pathetic existence.
My cross-country trip to St. Louis started with the same hope and excitement that a sixth grader feels on his first day of middle school. But, like most sixth graders, it didn’t take long for me end up emotionally wrecked and desperate to see my parents.
The trip began swimmingly, until the polar vortex arrived – and with it, Murphy’s Law.
It wasn’t until my run-in with the continent-sized cyclone that I: A) found out it was a thing, and B) understood the true meaning of Jules Winnfield’s threat in Pulp Fiction: The polar vortex struck down upon me with great vengeance and furious anger.
In fact, it rendered virtually everywhere east of Oregon completely and utterly incapacitated.
And guess who was in Missouri?
It was Sunday. The snow was coming down hard and piling up in St. Louis. Worried that my flight had been affected and after giving up on understanding the online flight status app, I called my airline.
After 20 minutes of angrily pressing buttons on my phone (my only retort to the insufferable robot on the other end), I finally discovered that if you press zero, you can (in theory) talk to a human.
It took an hour and a half of nauseatingly repetitive hold music to finally reach a human voice, but I persevered.
Immediately, it was clear that this woman had put up with one too many jackasses today. I remained cordial despite her impatience, convinced the universe would reward me.
The universe had other plans. The impatient woman informed me that my flight was canceled.
And the soonest I would be able to get home was Thursday afternoon.
Oh good. I had brought four dress shirts, four pairs of pants, four pairs of underwear, four pairs of socks. All of those were used up. All of them.
Additionally, what I didn’t have was the charger to my electric razor, causing me to sport the Jeremiah Johnson look for the next several days – if Jeremiah Johnson were still several years away from being able to grow a real beard.
I had five more days until I was home. This was going to be fun.
While most of my peers were busy buying textbooks, going to class and catching up after a restful winter break, I was sitting in an uppity hotel restaurant (because literally every restaurant within 10 square miles had shut down) chewing on an over-cooked 15 dollar hamburger and over-seasoned french fries (I could barely see the fries through the thick coating of cracked black pepper – seriously?!)
I spent all of the money I brought with me (and most on my debit card) on food at this restaurant and the Hard Rock Café a block away that opened the next day. Neither my palate nor my wallet rejoiced.
Additionally, in some inexplicable middle-of-the-night event involving my roommate moving a granite-top nightstand, my glasses were irreparably crushed.
Because of course.
But in the end, the trip was worth it. My flight was scheduled to leave at 7:20 am, so I arrived at the airport at 8 p.m. the night before. (I was trying to minimize opportunities for the universe to wield its powers against me.)
In the 11 sleepless hours before I left St. Louis, I witnessed a handful of small human interactions that put my perspective back in check – moments that forced me to release the self-centered lenses I caught myself peering through.
Airports are good places to take in fleeting snapshots of life. The little girls tearfully saying goodbye to dad because he’s leaving on a(nother) business trip across the country. The elderly couple in front of me in line at the café, opting for the plain bagels instead of the breakfast sandwiches (after much debate), to save a couple bucks for their trip to see the grandkids. The overworked middle-aged barista working at 4 a.m., literally sweating because she’s doing three people’s jobs, trying to fulfill the expectations of ungrateful customers she’ll never see again.
I suppose my prolonged stay in a three-star hotel wasn’t so bad.
Anyway, it’s good to be home.