Now she was moving closer and I backed up. “How old are you?” she asked. Before I could answer, she said, “Don’t tell me. I’m very good at ages and I would say you’re in your late 40s? 47 … 48 …”
That’s when it registered with me. OH MY GOD—SHE IS A HOOKER AND SHE IS BLIND.
“Yes, that’s right. I’m 47 … 48 … got to go to my room now,” I said and broke into a trot towards my room. “Don’t you want me to do something for your tension?” she called after me in a clearly seductive voice. “No, actually, I sleep better when I’m tense,” I answered, as I ran to my room and double-locked it.
At 5 a.m. I was awakened by my cell phone ringing. It was American Airlines informing me that my 7 a.m. flight to Fort Wayne was canceled. “Why?” I asked. Bad weather was the answer. Well, the weather in Chicago was perfect and my contact in Fort Wayne later said the weather was perfect there, too.
“Bad weather” is airline talk for: “We didn’t have enough passengers scheduled for that flight so we canceled it.” So we rented a car and I drove four hours to Fort Wayne. After our meeting we all decided to avoid American Airlines and come back via another airline. The plan was to fly Northwest Airlines from Fort Wayne into Detroit and then to LaGuardia.
As I was going through security in the tiny Fort Wayne airport, a pudgy security guard looked at my boarding pass and said, “You have been chosen by your airline, Northwest, to undergo additional security measures.” For the next 20 minutes he and his associate went through every part of my carry-on bag and my body. This pudgy guy wearing white rubber gloves patted me down and “massaged” me (his words) in places that the Hilton Hooker would have declined to touch.
He ran the wand over my fly and said, “That’s a metal zipper, isn’t it?” “Yes,” I said nervously. “Got to check that,” he smiled. Then he started to check me in an intimate area where I expected him to say, “Turn your head and cough.”
“Do you want to go into an area behind a screen?” he asked. “No, this is fine,” I said, thinking to myself that this guy was enjoying patting me too much for me to risk being alone with him. His partner was taking every item of clothing that I had in the bag and rolling it into a ball and stuffing it back into the bag. Every five minutes one of them would say, “We don’t want to do this but your airline, Northwest, has selected you for an additional security search.” Clearly I was the victim of a jurisdictional dispute between Northwest and the security staff at the airport.
Naturally when we got to Detroit our 7 p.m. Northwest flight to New York was delayed until 10:30.
I started this column with a prayer, and I will end it with a prayer:
God, please put Northwest out of business, too. In fact put every airline in the country out of business with the exception of JetBlue. And I would appreciate it if you can find me some advertising accounts that are only a subway ride away.
Amen.
If you wish to comment on “Jerry’s Ink,” send your message to jerry@dfjp.com.
