Late for your plane? Try this

I caught sight of him and my heart sank. I had about twenty seconds to decide whether or not I could hide – then realised that there was no way.

“Hey, you!!” My friend Talib waved, from three rows ahead of me on the plane. “Are you going to WDS??”

World Domination Summit is a yearly conference in Portland, where several thousand do-gooders getting together to make the world a better place. I go every year – and am now the conference’s Storytelling Coach.

“I am!” I said, waving back. “Let’s chat when we get to Calgary!”

I’d met Talib a few times before and really liked him. He’s smart, articulate, funny, and it’s always a nice change to find a man working in my very woman-heavy field, of coaching and personal growth.

But I love travelling alone. LOVE. And I worried that, him being here was going to cut into my special airplane solo time.

Five hours later, we got off the plane. Talib waited for me to catch up, and we chatted on the way to our next flight. We looked on the screens, saw it was gate 35 and wandered in the direction of the mid-thirties.

Very quickly, my obsession with staying in my Marsha-only bubble started to seem absurd. Talib and I were having SO much fun. Before this, we’d only ever hung out with others in a group, and getting to learn about the work he does was fascinating. He traverses the bridge between the often female-centric, often floaty world of holding space in life coaching, and that of dude-bros who are starting to realise there’s more to life than the surface-level things their friends are interested in, but they don’t know where to turn.

We talked about the difference between societal expectations and pressure on men (Be a Provider!) and women (Grow some babies!). The hour or so we had to wait for the flight to Portland whizzed by.

Suddenly – Talib stopped talking, concern flashing across his face.

“Hey, is it weird that the flight leaves in twenty minutes and they haven’t called us yet?”
“Yes, totally weird,” I said. “Let’s go right to gate 35 and wait there.”

As we walked up, we passed 32…33…34…36…37 – hang on.

“Excuse me?” I grabbed a gent in uniform as he was passing. “Where’s gate 35?”

“Oh honey,” he looked at me with pity. “Gate 35 is the American side. It’s about ten minutes walk that way and you gotta go through US customs first.”

Talib and I glanced at each other, wide-eyed – then RAN.

Tearing through the corridors of the airport, Talib explained that he has Nexus – the thing that let’s you jump the line. When we finally found US Customs, there was a MASSIVE queue – about 100 people. I ran to the front, and breathlessly said to a lady, “Hi! I’m so sorry to ask – our flight leaves in fifteen minutes. Would you mind if we jumped in line?” 

She smiled kindly, “You’re welcome to – but, once we get through this door, there’s another hundred people beyond.”

Nausea tugged at my stomach. I turned to Talib, “Don’t let me make you late – you take your Nexus and go. GO! I’ll see you on the plane!”

As he ran off, I went into the next room. I hurried up the side of the crowd, and, again, found a lady at the front of the queue.

“Hi! I’m so sorry – my flight leaves in fourteen minutes. Could I please jump in?”
She twisted her mouth up and tilted her head to one side.
“We’re late too,” she spat. “And there’s another room full of people through that door.”

Oh god. Oh god. I walked up and through – and she was right. Five snaking lines before the customs booths.

Over to the left, I saw a short lady with a lanyard being approached by six young gentlemen, all very tall, who seemed to be wearing matching tracksuits. I walked up, and heard her telling them,

“It’s ok, I’ll get you fast-tracked through customs.” The tension released in my shoulders. Thank god. It was going to be ok.

She turned to me and I tried to balance my smile somewhere between warm, a little embarrassed and enormously grateful.

“Hi!” I said, handing her my boarding pass. “My flight leaves in thirteen minutes. I didn’t realise we had to go through customs!”

She looked down, then shook her head.
“You’re on Air Canada. I’m American Airlines. I can’t help you.”

As she stepped away – WHUMP! – all the panic flew back into my chest.

I saw a TSA Officer walking past.
“Excuse me!” He turned and looked at me, but kept walking. I jogged alongside. “My flight leaves in thirteen minutes! Can I jump the queue, please? I didn’t know I had to go through customs.”

Looking at me impassively, he said, “There’s nothing you can do, ma’am.” He turned back and kept walking.

“But…”

“You need to get back in line,” and he disappeared.

This is it, I thought, and the dragging feeling of shame and disappointment pulled at my chest. I’m such an IDIOT. I should have KNOWN there’d be customs.

In front of me, the lanyard lady from American Airlines was arguing with a TSA agent. He was telling her, “We can’t walk them through. They have to do customs here.”

She stepped forward and said something to him quietly. He rolled his eyes, lifted up the barrier to the portion right at the front of the line, and started ushering the young guys through.

Seeing my chance, I sidled up and slipped in behind before he closed the barrier again.

I stood there, trying to look invisible. I’m 5’7”, but they were each a full head taller than me so it wasn’t hard. Eventually, it was my turn to go through customs.

Done, I walked through to the next room…only to realise we now had to go back through security – and tackle another 100-strong line.

Right in front of me, the young men were being frog-marched by Ms Lanyard, and so I followed. We got waved past the man ordering the long line, and sent towards the business class express lane.

She explained to the guy checking the boarding passes that they were to be allowed through, then she left.

I followed them, last in line. When he got to me, the agent looked at my boarding pass – then back up at me with confusion.

“You’re not going to Dallas with them!”

Imploring, I told him, “My flight leaves in eight minutes!”

His eyes widened, “GO!” He waved me through.

There were about ten people in this line, most of them from the group of young men. As we inched towards the belt and the metal detector, one of the guys looked at me, and then did a double-take.

“Hey!” he said. “You’ve been with us the whole time!”

“I know,” I squished my mouth and wrunkled my nose in apology. “I was really late for my flight. It leaves in six minutes, so I just kind of pretended I was with you guys. You rescued me!”

He laughed and his friend joined in.

“Are you guys on some sort of team?”

“Yeah,” the friend said. “We’re the Scorpions, San Antonio’s official soccer team. We were playing a game in Toronto.”

“Woah! How did it go?”

“Not good,” he shook his head. “We lost four-nill.”

“Well, listen,” I looked up at him and then the friend, “I promise you, your luck is going to turn around now. This is karma – this’ll come back to you. And if I ever see your team playing, I am going to cheer SO LOUDLY.”

They laughed again, then the first guy said, “Hey…six minutes? You wanna go in front of us?”

“Oh my god! Thank you!!!”

They ushered me forward. There were two business men at the front who’d been watching this unfold.
“Can I…” I started.
“Go! Go!” they said, and I shoved my laptop and bag in the tray, then rushed through the metal detector.

On the other side, Talib was waiting for me. I grabbed my stuff and shouted “Run!” as I caught up with him, and we pelted towards gate 35.

The flight attendent spotted us. “Shandur and Hussain?”

“That’s us!!!” we yelled, showed her our boarding passes and passports, then tumbled onto the plane. They closed the door behind us.

As we made our way to sit down, Talib stared at me.

“What HAPPENED??”

I collapsed into my seat.

“Soccer team…” I gasped, “…running…. I’ll tell you when I catch my breath.”

Thanks so much for reading! If you can think of someone who’d enjoy this – perhaps a friend who also has hairy travelling experiences, you can do that by clicking one of the buttons below – or sharing it on Facebook by clicking on these words.

I would love – LOVE – to hear your wangling onto plane story. I bet you have one – or one from a friend. Let me know in the comments below!

And if you have stories you’d like to use in your blogs, on your website copy, in videos, talks or anywhere else – but want some help making them short and powerful, I’d LOVE to do that for you. Take a look at yesyesmarsha.com/workwithme, or if it’s telling your Business “Why” story, yesyesmarsha.com/whystory.

You rule!

xx (Yes Yes) Marsha

PS want to know my best-ever client secret – and get even more advice, tips, plus stories that I won’t put on the internet? Come and join the Yes Yes Family – it’s free! Just pop your details in below:

Photo Credits: Philipp Dubach, via unsplash, IsaacMao via Compfight cc,

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