standby

chumphon, thailand

of a myriad of childhood influences, the fact that my mom worked for a major airline may have been the greatest. the job, from my vantage point, was far from great. the commute was long, management sounded to be aloof at best, and humanity rarely gets uglier than when someone is upset at an airport (if you want to see an asshole personified, look no further than the customers queued at an airline kiosk next time there's a delay.) of course, i didn't have to endure any of that. i just got to enjoy a perk that makes the company car look like, well, peanuts (sorry for the obvious in-flight reference.)

i am speaking of free or extremely reduced-cost air travel, but i'm sure you already picked up on that. after the paying passengers have boarded, there will typically be a handful of empty seats distributed to the standby list, the end of which is comprised of airline employees and their companions. usually, there are enough leftover seats that you will get to where you want to go. it may not be the first flight and may entail an out-of-the-way connection (or four), but the odds are in your favor.

because of this benefit, we had season tickets to university of washington football, even though we lived in denver. more than once, we flew into lax in the morning, spent the day at disneyland, and flew back at night. when a good friend moved to cleveland, i could visit him for a week every summer. for one long weekend holiday my senior year, mom took me to australia for a few days. i also saw my grandparents as frequently as if they were neighbors, even though they lived in seattle.

it was as great as it sounds, but it also instilled some heavy doses of humility. it didn't matter if we had a week marked off the calendar and hotel reservations; if flights to honolulu were full, we weren't going. we had to dress well and sit upright and be on our best behavior, otherwise "our" seats could be passed on to someone down the list (though i think my mom exaggerated that part.) it takes two hands to count the number of times i have slept inside chicago o'hare's airport and there have been multiple holidays that were this close to being spent in a food court.

the big takeaway, as far as i see it, is that my modus operandi was entirely molded on the concourses of this great world's airports: the world is yours, so long as you'll fit. or: you can go anywhere you want to go, just don't be a dick about it. however you wish to phrase it, i owe an astronomical debt to the cosmos for granting access to the globe and front-row seats at seminars on patience, hard work, entitlement, and humility at the school of hard knocks. the end result may not be receiving any awards, but, hey, i'm in thailand right now. and i'm not being a dick about it.

this present trip is a result of several serendipitous blessings, none greater than the reinstatement of flight priveleges this year. you probably don't want to hear what the flight portion does or does not cost, and you certainly don't want to hear that i went over the water both times in business class. what is more relevant is that the time to return is nearing and my eyes in the sky have suggested that bangkok is looking a little tough to get out of. there's one flight a day and it looks to be a photo finish each and every one. what could happen? i could catch the first flight out. i could also spend a week riding back and forth on the sky train on polar ends of unsuccessful attempts to fly the friendly skies.

so i'm going to singapore. flights are looking pretty good for early next week and since i'm only a few train rides away from the bottom of the peninsula, i reckon i'll just take the rails down. i'll get a malaysia stamp in the passport and introduce some new street food to the system. vacation was nice and lovely, but i've got to catch a flight in about a week. until then, the world is still mine.