London, England
Saturday, May 25th, 1991
4:30, touchdown, the temperature is 56 degrees F. Ah, Heathrow, my least favorite airport… Well now that I have traveled to India(a previous trip) that does seem to be an extreme statement. In fact, my latest experience at Heathrow has been quite benign compared to 10 years ago. We landed at Terminal Four and I had no idea where to go to arrange a standby status. So I waited until 5:40 AM for the sales and reservation desk to open.
There were four clerks there, one of which was an Indian. Of course, I was helped by him. The only difficulty with dealing with an Indian is understanding the accent. I think the English get more frustrated with Americans than do the French, when Americans can’t understand a word that they are saying. This gentleman’s accent wasn’t too hard to follow, even this early in the morning. He looked at the flights and told me that the Nice flights were “quite overbooked.” But he did manage to move me up from Monday 7:00 PM to Sunday 7:00 PM. That was a small victory. He then gave me directions to Terminal One where I could check in at the standby desk.
Heathrow is civilized in that you can take the small luggage carts just about anywhere. I wheeled my bags to the street just in time to catch the shuttle bus to Terminal One. The shuttle bus has storage underneath with automatic doors. You just throw your bags in and then get on. It is a fairly long bus ride as far as airports go, but I finally got to Terminal One. I got directions to the standby desk and there I stood in yet another line (sorry, make that queue.)
There the clerk was very pessimistic. He noted that the first plane out was a 737, which is quite small, and it was very overbooked. I am paying little attention to this as behind me in line is a very attractive woman. The clerk catches my attention and I get a standby boarding pass. I then go through passport control. There, the security staff spots my Swiss Army knife in my luggage. Since I am going standby I have to cart my large garment bag with me. The knife is in a smaller bag, inside the garment bag. The garment bag was packed for three weeks of travel and has the manuals I was going to use in India, and my tripod, as well has a ton of dirty clothing. The security officer is a small woman and she struggled with my bag, dragging it to the counter, straining to lift it. Succeeding, she asks me to open it. I quickly show her the knife, which is easy to get to in a side pocket, but she makes me open every zipper on the bag, and pulls out everything to examine.
I finally get everything back into the bag and the bag zipped up. During the inspection she spots some of my magic apparatus that looks suspicious. (Without going into details, it was a prescription pill container inside a larger pill container, held together with rubber bands. In the inside container was some materials used in my magic.) Her colleague asks me to show them something, so I do some quick card tricks. I am now in the waiting area. Gates are not announced at Heathrow until right at boarding time, so everyone waits in a central area. I convert $240 HK dollars to 15.41 Pounds and purchase a large orange juice and breakfast roll. I am now just killing time.
I look around to see if the woman who was behind me at the standby desk is anywhere, but I don’t see her. The gate is finally announced. I handed my pass to the attendant and was directed to wait (of course.) I strategically place myself next to the woman I had seen at the standby desk. She was going on standby of the same flight. I had my cards out (of course) and in a short time had engaged her in conversation. She is French and lives near Valbonne. She said she worked for Air France, I assumed as a flight attendant by her dress and appearance. We chatted as the plane was filling up.
I asked her what she thought our chances were, she replied that they weren’t very good. She had an alternative Air France flight leaving about an hour later, so she wasn’t too concerned. Much to my surprise, my name was the first one called for standbys. There was some initial confusion with another passenger named Wallace, but my first initial won. Not to mention that he was older and slower than I. I shouted “good luck” to the French woman and dashed down the stairs to the waiting bus hoping that the next passenger would be the lady from Valbonne.
The next passengers were a middle aged couple and a single man. I held hope until about 15 people had boarded the bus, and then the doors shut. I figured that since she was an airline employee, she did not have an actual ticket while (or as the sign on the bus said:whilst) the rest of us had tickets. Ticket holders were boarded first. It shows the mixture of luck I am having on this trip. First the good luck of getting to go on the trip, then bad luck having to go to Ahmedabad, then canceling India (good), then sitting next to a Nun (bad), then making standby (good), but not flying with an attractive French woman . . . etc.
As we get off the bus to board the plane I notice that an incision on the back of my leg has begun bleeding. Prior to my trip I had minor surgery to remove a mole and had six stitches put in the back of my thigh. Immediately before leaving, the stitches had been removed. The wound had been bothering me for sometime now, and apparently was now infected. I will see about cleaning it up and bandaging it at Michel’s house. Hopefully Vianeytte (Michel’s wife) knows how to remove blood stains from linen slacks.