72 Minutes
by Erin Gottwald

Last week I got a call from my mom. She wanted to book flights to Ft. Myers for her and my dad. 

Actually, I should rephrase that: she wanted me to book flights to Ft. Myers for her and my dad. She calls me her personal travel agent which is ironic because her second born child, my sister Kirsten owns an international business and is an informed traveler. But since the zodiac aligns or because I am a weaker personality, my patience lasts longer than some would recommend is healthy and I can withstand the 72 minute phone conversation that ensues. 

“O.k., so we want to go to Ft. Myers around March 22 and return around March 29, but we don’t need to go for an entire week. Actually, Freddie,” my mom consults my dad, who is sitting next to her on the couch focusing on a television program. In order for my dad to focus on the new task at hand, he takes a long dramatic pause to re-establish a connection with the person to his side and pull away from the television set. I wait on the other end of the phone. “Freddie. Can you turn that down? Actually, off would be better. Judy and Bobby said that they are going to go down on which dates?” 

I hear my dad’s voice in the background. This decision about departure and arrival takes 15 minutes which does not surprise me. There is little prep time with the Gottwalds. Spontaneous, we are not, but planners we are less.

“O.k., so Daddy thinks we should leave on Wednesday and return on Tuesday. Oh, and Judy and Bobby said we should check AirTran. We like JetBlue, but should we try AirTran?”

I should interject here. Recently Chris and I flew AirTran from Austin to JFK. We had booked our tickets through Southwest, but they now have this special yet totally incomprehensible partnership with AirTran. Southwest is a healthy airline: it has big Texans aboard, rugged outdoorsy New Englanders who are tight-lipped and territorial, lots of families with kids who start pre-boarding 45 minutes in advance. Chris and I had an inkling of what was ahead on our journey when we arrived at the AirTran gate at Houston Hobby. We had to exit the main terminal and get re-screened to enter the shitty terminal which is partly under construction and partly a time capsule: built way before anyone thought about airport architecture, psychological effects of colors, seating and lighting. There are about five gates in this terminal and we wince to realize that: A) our gate is one of them and B) the only snack place is a bar-pizza hybrid joint where the tables are stool height and each one has a BUD LITE umbrella hoisted above it. Remember there is no natural light that would explain the need for an umbrella. But I digress. 

AirTran’s customer base looks like my fellow NYC subway riders which really isn’t a reason to be concerned as I am familiar and comfortable with these people - disheveled, tired daydreamers. But I wonder what happened to all those robust Texans, territorial New Englanders, and babies. Were we pre-scanned to join the reject flight? Once aboard AirTran, I have the answer to that question. Chris’s armrest is wobbly and can’t sustain the resting of his elbow (not a massive piece of anatomy), our tray tables are tilted so that our cups slide toward the edge and spill, and a guy across the aisle asks a flight attendant for a pillow and blanket and she brusquely responds, “Well, do you have $5?” before continuing past him down the aisle. He makes eye contact with us and we all raise our eyebrows the way I imagine kids in detention do when they have asked the monitor for a pencil and have been told that detention is not for homework and they are expected to sit with their hands folded on their desks and stare at the chalkboard without blinking. We knew we were in for an inhospitable, uncomfortable, and unforgettable flight. The exceptional turbulence was a perk.

“I think we should stick with JetBlue,” I respond.

I look up their options and inform my mom that there are approximately 15 daily flights from Boston to Ft. Myers. This makes her happy. I tell her that the direct flights are $179, the one-stop flights are $129. This makes her (and my dad) unhappy.

“What do you mean? We can’t fly direct? What does a layover mean? Do I have to take-off and land more than one time? Isn’t that going to be confusing? Will we have to switch planes? How do we know where to go?” The panic is palpable. It’s like I just told her that although she will survive, the flight will indeed have a crash landing. I feel like we have stepped back into 1971.

“Mom, you switch planes. The flight attendants basically escort you to the gate across the hall. It’s easy. And it will save you $200 round-trip.”

“I don’t know. Freddie…Freddie, are you listening? She says that a direct flight is $200 more expensive.” I can hear (if you knew him, you could hear it too) my dad look up to the ceiling, stroke his chin, squint his eyes and purse his lips. He doubts the simplicity of things in life. And his skepticism, although well-known to his offspring as borne from a complicated personal history, always reveals itself in incredibly reduced one word reactions with an inhale as the drumroll, as it does at this moment: “[inhale]…Really?”

 I convince my mom that flying through JFK on JetBlue will be easy. It’s a hub. It’s friendly. It will be okay. She translates the assurance to my dad and there is clearance for purchase. Credit card purchases online, in my mom’s mind, are a disgraceful thing. She is plagued by an incident from years ago, long before computers came into her everyday life when her credit card statement reflected purchases of  “jewels” at Jordan Marsh. That had caught her eye. No one in our family bought “jewels.” It turns out her credit card had been stolen from her wallet in our minivan by a neighborhood kid. Although it is in no way related to online purchases, it was a traumatic event 25 years ago and she remains highly resistant to making credit card purchases unless she is the person inserting it into a machine. 

She reads the credit card to me like it is her will. Speaking of, she also tells me where the hard copy of their will is located while the credit card transaction is going through. “Just in case,” she says.

“Good to know,” I say. After a few minutes, the confirmation page appears on the computer screen and I inform her that the purchase is complete. Now it’s time to choose seats. For some reason, this is “wicked exciting” for my parents.

“We want to be in the front of the plane.” I am impressed by her declaration. I tell her that there are some seats in the front of the plane, but they are not side by side.

“Shit.” She has a tendency to swear for dramatic value. And it always serves its purpose, as she isn’t a typically natural curser. “Freddie, there aren’t any seats together in the front of the plane.” No doubt, another inhale and a look up to the ceiling from Freddie.

I explain to her that there are seats together in the middle of the plane but my mom wants to be in the front of the plane; after all, there will be that crash landing and she wants to get off FIRST. 

My dad inquires, “Where does Erin sit?” It’s endearing to me that my dad will take my lead. On the other hand, we all know that there is an underlying pressure with that type of question. It means that he will take your advice, but if he is disappointed, he will not forget. I tell them that I usually sit above the wing and they decide to do the same. I put them in the Emergency Exit Row. You can imagine the 21 questions that my mom would fire off if I told her that she is in that row. I decided to leave this job to the flight attendants at Logan.

I ask whether they want a window and middle or aisle and middle and chaos ensues.

“What do you mean? We want only 2 seats in our row.”

“That isn’t an option, Mom.”

“Shit.“

I stare at my television, a muted episode of my favorite show, and say to myself: “[inhale]…shit is right.”