10/24/2011

Fly the Unfriendly Skies

Story Sent in by Max:

Suzanne and I had been dating for about six months when we wound up at an airport together with plans to fly out to San Francisco for Suzanne's parents' wedding anniversary party. A little less than an hour before our flight, we were at the gate and Suzanne left for the bathroom.

About 20 minutes later, she texted me, "Can you come here?"

I dragged our luggage to just outside the closest women's room, where I assumed that she was. I texted her, "I'm right outside the bathroom. Everything okay?"

She called me up and asked, "Where are you? I don't see you."

I replied, "Outside the women's room. Is that where you are?"

"Yes, but I don't see you anywhere."

It took us a minute to figure out that she was at a bathroom at the other side of the terminal. "What are you doing there?" I asked, "There's a bathroom within sight of the gate, and they're going to start boarding any second."

She replied, "I didn't see it. I clogged a toilet really bad here, and now none of the toilets in the entire bathroom are flushing."

I said, "You clogged one, so they're all not working? That doesn't make any sense, but flag down a maintenance worker and hurry back here. We can't miss the flight."

"Okay," she said, "See you soon."

We hung up. Sure enough, the gate agents soon invited all first-class passengers and active duty military to board. I scanned the approaching crowd for Suzanne, but there was no sign of her. The gate agents called for the back rows of the aircraft to board. I called Suzanne again.

She said, "I can't find a maintenance person. There's water all over the place, now. People are getting really angry."

I said, "Find anyone. A gate agent. A police officer. They'll alert whoever needs to know. You have to get back here right now, or we're going to miss this plane."

"Okay," she said, then hung up.

By the time the gate agents made it to, "All other passengers are welcome to board," Suzanne still hadn't shown up. I went up to the desk and explained that she was stuck in the bathroom.

The gate agent was sympathetic, but firm. "She has five minutes to get here, otherwise, we're closing the doors."

I asked the gate agent if she could watch my luggage while I ran to find Suzanne myself. The gate agent replied that under no circumstances could I leave baggage unattended.

Carrying all of our luggage down the hall as quickly as I could,  I ran for the far bathroom and arrived in miraculous time. Suzanne was nowhere to be seen. I called her.

"Hello?" she answered as if nothing at all was amiss.

I said, "They're closing the plane doors in a minute. I'm at the far bathroom. Where the hell are you?"

Silence from her end of the line, then, "I don't really like your tone. Where are you now?"

"I'm at the far bathroom!" I squawked, "We're going to miss the plane!"

She replied, "I could really do without that tone. I'll be there in just a second."

She hung up and strolled up to me a few moments later, holding a fountain drink. "Where were you?" I asked her.

She pointed to a small cafe nearby. "I couldn't really hear what you were saying over the phone," she said, "What's wrong?"

I said, "I think we might have just missed our flight."

She said, "What?! Oh my God!" and without grabbing any of her own luggage, she ran down to our plane's gate.

Sure enough, by the time I arrived, I saw Suzanne pleading with the same gate agent, who could offer nothing but later flying arrangements (with a substantial fee tacked on).

Suzanne then turned to me, holding all the bags, and she yelled, "It's because of you! If you kept up with me, we could've made it! They closed the doors less than a minute ago!"

I yelled back, "If you went to the closer bathroom and listened to me when I told you, more than once, that they were boarding, then we'd be on the plane!"

She said, "You had a nasty tone! And if I went to this bathroom then it probably would've clogged, too! Now we're going to miss the party!"

She grabbed her luggage and I let her take it. She said, "I'm getting on the next plane, and you're not coming with me!"

I tried for about a minute to convince Suzanne to see reason, but she wasn't into that, so I left with my bags. Her parents had paid for our tickets, so it would be no financial loss on my part. Still, I felt bad for them, so I called them to explain the situation. Her father insisted that I fly out with Suzanne, and said that they'd call her themselves to smooth things over.

"Find someplace to wait," he instructed me, "Either I'll call you back or she will once I'm done talking to her."

I stopped in the very same cafe Suzanne had shown me. I waited to hear back from either her or her parents.

Her father called me back shortly thereafter. He told me, "You should probably just head out. She was screaming over everything I said, and she kept saying how much she hates you. Sorry about all of this."

"I'm sorry, too," I said, and walked out of the airport and out of Suzanne's life.

18 comments:

  1. There has to be more to this.
    There is no way you were both in a well-functioning relationship and this happened.

    First of; why didn't you go help her earlier?
    Second; why the pushy tone?
    Third; why on earth would she leave you just because of that, are you guys 12?

    I think this was the culmination of a lot of things, and yes, she probably overreacted, but dude you need to work on your relationshipskills....

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  2. First: He was waiting for a plane.
    Second: She was a stupid drama queen.
    Third: Probably.

    I agree there must have been something more, but I think if OP was a psycho a little of that would have leaked into his letter. She may have been a sane person but had parent or family issues that were triggered at the airport.

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  3. I am confused. We have all clogged some toilets at some points in our lives. It is not a difficult situation to handle! And definitely not a reason to miss a plane for. Just try finding a "pumpa" or press a button for maintenance or let some official know the toilet is broken.

    But one thing is really weird. What would she be doing at a cafe getting a drink knowing she has less than 5 minutes to board the plane while being at the far end of the terminal? That is really stupid; terrible sense of time; and horrible sense of responsibility. This kind of personality would drive any boyfriend insane considering that he is already stressed with ensuring he gets on the plane on time.

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  4. OP either isn't telling us something (like there was relationship issues simmering up long before this) or OP is truely clueless. If this is the case, OP, don't sweat it, we're all clueless at one time or another.

    This has nothing to do with the bathroom. This is about OP's GF - either she wants to break, or she is not ready for OP to meet her folks, or she has some kind of stressful relationship with her folks, or something else deeper going on, and she can't talk about it so the whole bathroom thing is just her passive-aggresive way of "oops, we missed the flight, guess we can't go now".

    I don't think she's a bad person; She's just feeling trapped, unable to communicate what's really on her mind, and she's freaking out about it. We've all done this at one time or another, i none way or the other. Yes you have. Think about it. Admit it. It's a copping mechanism. It's human nature.

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  5. I cannot wait for the rebuttal. It will involve epic poops, soda fountains, hysterical nancy-boy boyfriends, and lawn gnomes.

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  7. Tourist: Um... no, I really haven't because by the time I was old and calculating enough to do something like this, I was mature enough not to. Only small children would have an excuse to be that passive-aggressive. There is absolutely no excuse for what she did; she wasted her parents' money and the OP's time. She was selfish and manipulative. I can't believe anybody is taking this girl's side.

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  8. Nobody is taking this girl's side. She broke the bathroom damnit! And caused major flooding to all the other toilets too!

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  9. Loving the passive-tense in this story. "we wound up at an airport"?? Makes it sound like you missed a turn or something :p

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  10. This is why I think that every couple should travel together before making major life decisions about each other. Great litmus test/flaw exposer.

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  11. ^Agreed. I was in a relationship for over a year before we traveled around Europe for about a week. It took me all of a day and a half to want to kill him.

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  12. ^ Same thing happened to my brother, except he and his girlfriend went to California. She was a bitch to him the whole time. They didn't last much longer after that.

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  13. I know it's not nice or the right thing to do... but if I knew I had a flight to catch in five minutes I would just leave the clogged toilet.

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  14. ^Seriously. A c,ogged toilet is not the end of the world for whatever maintenance worker has to clean it. And at least they would have had the tools for the job.

    Sounds like she got flustered and had a breakdown.

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  16. I can't WAIT to hear the other side of this ridiculousness!

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  17. As someone with a phobia of overflowing toilets and sinks, I can easily see myself freaking out over that. But I wouldn't have blamed my BF for it or went and got a drink. I think I would have just panicked and left the bathroom.

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  18. Sounds like she wasn't ready for the OP to meet her parents and had a panic attack.

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