Oct 01 2002
Heathrow Hustle
It’s around 6:15 a.m. in London. Despite all the warnings about needing three hours for check-in, security, etc., it took less than half an hour. So now I have two hours to dread the ordeal ahead. In the meantime, here’s how to achieve a mental state suitably disordered for travel:
1. Go to sleep late at an unfamiliar hotel airport. Be so paranoid about not getting up on time and missing the plane that you have a wake-up call scheduled and have borrowed a travel alarm clock, but keep waking up every couple of hours anyway. Wake up before alarm goes off and just get the hell up.
2. Get the hell up really early. Discover that what you thought were 4 sachets of instant coffee are in fact two sachets of decaf and two of “real” coffee. Gah. Have half a cup of instant coffee, which is almost enough to enable you to face getting dressed, repacked, etc. Also just enough to replace your total exhaustion with partial exhaustion with an amusing edge of very minor caffeine buzz, which in turn enhances your native nervousness.
3. Arrive at the airport with plenty of time to fret. Do not eat anything. About an hour before take-off time, have a V&V (a valium with a vodka and orange juice). Worth the shudder if you can keep it down.
4. Hope for the best.