I took a midnight plane

 The house is sparkling and the children are all, spit-spot ready. They are sparkling as well. I walk with one of the boys to the synagogue of the president  (beit k'nesset hanasi) via Ussishkin. On the way, we see the Greenfield men heading to some other shul. People are crossing in every direction as it seems that there is a minyan in every pot. We are headed to the synagogue at which David's parents daven -- a very American style evening service. I am wearing a red sweater in a sea of people wearing suits and ties. Then back home.

Dinner guests are 4 seminary girls (when I heard the "sem girls" were coming over I thought we were having a Rolling Stones album party; I was wrong). Three are from Monsey (opa beis ya'akov style) and one is from Flatbush. They warm up to the family and love playing with the kids and arguing the subtleties of Harry Potter. Food galore and dessert to beat the band. After they leave, we all retire to our neutral corners. I woke up at 4:45 but there was a second show at 7AM. I readied myself for shul and we were off to Kol Rina. I got an aliyah but I'll forgive them for that. Then back to the house for lunch with David's parents. Deli, chicken, hot dogs, potatoes, veggies and probably other stuff I forgot. Wonderful conversation. Then I walked down to the end of the block to watch life in and around Gan Sacher. N, D and I all chatted, trading memories and thoughts. Mine were the depressing ones - my niche is known. My traveling jones neuroses started kicking up by mid afternoon but I held them off until after mincha, when the pacing began in earnest (a small town in Israel, I think). I started wondering about exactly how I was going to get to the airport. My plan had been simple -- as soon as shabbat was over, I would walk up to the train station and then, in 25 minutes, I'd be at the airport, plenty early and able to decompress, process and prep.

According to all accounts, though, that was not to be. The first train was not scheduled to leave the station until (get this...are you getting?) 8:40PM. Now, with shabbat over by 6PM it seems strange that it would take over 2.5 hours to turn the ignition key on a train, especially if anyone had a clue about the fact that all of Bergen county (nay, the NY metropolitan area) was planning to get out of dodge and they all needed to get to the airport. But, nope. 8:40. This would not do, thought I. Options? The bus has been mostly replaced by the train, so that's out. A cab would cost close to 80 dollars but a shared bus (up to 10 passengers but the driver drives around to pick people up at their houses) was only 71 shekel (somewhere in the range of 21 dollars, which is less). But you are supposed to reserve a spot by Friday morning, which had just recently become the distant past. Nomi called anyway and dealed the wheels so that Samer would make the pick up at some point around 8. I was ready to leave for the 3 minute walk to the pick up location at 6:45, just to be sure. I forced myself to stick around until 7:50 ish.

Side note -- the service that provides these mini-buses is called Nesher and the buses are know as a "sheroot" (service). But I saw an article last week in which the English used to name/describe them was "share route." Though completely wrong, this is still pretty much completely right. Cool beans etc.

We waited at the stop with Nomi in frequent contact with the driver, ironing out the exact location. She also explained to me why there were so many strange regular buses on her street. There are protests a block over so the buses have to use plan B and go around the protests. All very practiced. Anyway, we continue to wait and Samer says he is 7 minutes away. Then, in 6 minutes, a garbage truck appears and parks right in front of me. I take NO hint. But I do worry that the Nesher will not see us with this huge truck emptying dumpsters. Nomi speaks to Samer one more time and coopts the garbage truck for her nefarious purposes. She tells him that we are next to the truck, turning it not into a hinderance but into an asset - a visual cue! Genius! The mini-bus shows up at 8:25. Remember, my flight is at 12:05 AM. By my standards I am already viciously late. Then, then sherut does not leave town. Instead it climbs another hill and twists and turns and makes another pickup in some neighborhood on the far side of Baghdad. Finally, we go back down the hill and get on to the highway. We needn't have worried -- the traffic jam waited for us. As I slowly have a panic attack, we sit and look at brake lights. The driver actually gets off an exit and then comes back up the next entrance ramp hoping to bypass the traffic to some degree. Eventually we get to the accident (fully off to the shoulder, so nothing but whatever the Hebrew equivalent of rubbernecking is) and are able to move on. I have stopped looking at my watch and hope that the flight crew will also not look at theirs and forget to take off until I arrive.

When you drive into Ben Gurion, there is a security stop. Every car is stopped and so are buses. Often, a soldier comes on and picks someone at random, asks for a passport, and then disappears for a while and the bus pulls over to wait. Guess whose passport has the name "random"? Yay, I finally won a lottery. So now, I'm that guy slowing the whole thing down. This is doing nothing for my anxiety. Another soldier returns, confirms that the passport is mine and starts the security game show of "answer the questions about your trip." Normally, I'm quite good at the game, but when he started, has asked "English or Hebrew" and my answer was something north of "gibberish, please." The questions weren't tough (why are you here, where did you say, what's the square root of 89) but I completely forgot how to listen, think and speak. He asked how long I had been in Israel and I (seriously) forgot how to do basic subtraction, so I guessed -- heck he had my passport,. Why didn't he just check for me instead of making me feel stupid? It was, as they say, the straw that drank the camel's Coke. He returned my passport, convinced that I, as a certified imbecile, was no threat to anyone as long as I left the country as quickly as possible. At 9:30 we arrived at the terminal and I paid the driver, grabbed my stuff and ran inside to find a line that would make Disney World cry.

First line is the pre-screening line. I am quickly losing hope that I will ever get to any airplane, ever. I find out that behind me there is another family (mom, dad and two very littles) who are on the same flight, so I figure, if we all miss the plane, I can defray the cost of a new ticket by picking up a babysitting gig. The line behind me has (no exaggeration) doubled already, and is still growing. Had I gotten there a few minutes later, I would be teaching class via Zoom on Monday. By 9:54 I finished the prescreening and was allowed to move into the line for check-in. I noticed that the family that was behind me has somehow made it onto a separate line labeled "staff" and are all the way through already. My source of reassurance and ready cash is gone. I made it through check-in, weave around the oversized line for oversized luggage, and towards the next security check. This starts with a screening to see if you are moral enough to go to the next screening. After a couple of these, you get to the "choose your own adventure" part of the show where no one directs you, you just pick a security line. The instructions say to take off your outer layer of clothing. I'm wearing a suit and a winter coat, so I take off the winter coat. I also put my bag on the conveyer as I have in the past. But the rules have changed! The bag goes in a bin, shoes stay on and the suit jacket has to come off. Do not pass Go, do not collect 200 dollars. And, when you put the suit jacket in the bin, it has to go UNDER the carry on, and not on top of it. We have rules, people. Otherwise, what separates us from the animals? On through the metal detector after I confirm to repeated questioning that my pockets are completely empty and, no, I am not wearing a belt. The detector agrees with me and I move through, trying to collect my various stuffings from bins 1 through 4. I am really shocked that more people don't lose/miss/forget more stuff there. I feel like they make us doff so much and pile it in bins in order to make us lose things that they can then sell to support the hiring of more metal detectors.

Next up, Biometric Passport Control. No BioImperial, I notice. Fascists. There used to be a sign that told you to use biometric if you can, though no one told you if you could or couldn't. Now they just have everyone smile for a camera in order to open the little gate things. No piece of paper (an exit visa) is issued so had I the time, I would worry. But, alas, I will have to save that for another trip. Down the big ramp to the main hall and all the shops and food and such. I have a pretty advanced case of nausea already so I figure that some food would be a great idea -- one must have something in his stomach to be able to throw up really spectacularly, right? But time is not on my side. It is after 10 (I'm not sure exactly what time it is because my watch is in a pocket of something I put in a bin and I can't figure out which one so I just keep moving. There is a clock but I have lost the ability to read it (digital) and can't comprehend what time means anymore; there is only the now and the late error. I'm too bundle-of-nerves to slow my rolling bag on the way to gate C6 so no food is good food at this point. I settle in at C6 at 10:42 (boarding is at 11:10). I am finally able to do the math -- curb to gate in about an hour and quarter and the 5 years off of my life. I buy a beer and a bag of chips with my remaining Israeli money (there is a tip jar that says, "Afraid of change? Give a tip." I like it so much I give them one shekel) and try to relax.

At 11:08, no announcement has been made about boarding so there is already a line. In our community, everyone is special, so when they finally ask those with special situations to queue up, we are already there. I have no platinum status, preferred traveler, purple badge or whatever the really special people have, and I notice that some of the reg'lar folk are being pulled out of the pre-boarding security line to go to a faster one. I am about to get angry about it when I realize that I'm already being a jerk for lining up well before my group is due to board. So I shut the ol' gob and wait my turn. I like to board early because, you know, 12 hours of flight time on a plane isn't enough. I want that extra 30 minutes to make sure that I'm really uncomfortable. Seat 26H beckons so I situate myself, put my carry-on in the carry-on place and observe. At this point, I have seen a couple of students who have given me the smile-and-wave, but not the mass of them that I thought would be flying home tonight. Until the Kramarsz family comes on board! I'm a fan of theirs so this provides some good fun (man do THEY have a story...I won't tell too much of it, except for the wrinkle that this wasn't their flight, but they showed up 12 hours early for their flight because they misread AM for PM so they hopped onto this one -- I do like the idea of being 12 hours early for a flight...). Next coincidence -- remember when I said that we had Shabbat dinner with sem girls? One asked me if I knew a specific Frisch student. It happened to be she asked about Sivan Kramarsz! I was planning on finding Sivan on Monday and telling her but, wow -- she got the seat directly across the aisle from me so I told her then. That left just the next 12 hours to kill with awkward conversation!

It turned out, by the way, that the seat to my right (the middle of our little row of three) was unused so there was a little more room to breathe the recycled air. Yay! The plane's thermostat was set at an uncomfortable 78 degrees (F, you know) so there was that also. We took off at 12:25 and the skies were ours. I took a benadryl and watched "The Dead Don't Die". Weird movie -- I'm not sure if it was good or just amusing and bizarre. Either way, it was on my list so I got to check that off. I made the decision not to eat any dinner and I think this was prudent of me because I feel that a classroom teacher loses some of his authority if he throws up on his student. I wasn't especially hungry anyway so I moved to the next stage of the flight -- the shifting of position and inability to be comfortable while I try to sleep. The turbulence was minimal so there's that. I did as much tossing and turning as the limited space and my aching body would allow and slept on and off and in and out for a bunch o' hours. At the 8 hour mark of the flight (after semi-sleeping for 5.5 hours or so) the captain made an announcement "Cabin Crew, please be seated." I checked the chart and we were approaching Iceland. I assume this was some sort of local custom, to sit when one nears Iceland. Otherwise, it was a coded way of telling the crew that we were going to hit heavy turbulence. Good luck falling back to sleep after that! So I stayed up and fretted. No turbulence ensued but this did waste another half an hour of my life. I did get a little more sleep but not really any "rest". Or maybe it is vice versa. I can't tell any more.

I did opt for breakfast (they asked if I order the "really kosher meal" or not. I said "I'll take whatever you have" and I got an omelet, a roll, a "white cheese" a fruit jam, a yogurt, a biscuit, a fruit bar a cup of water and a bag in which there was just the most adorable group of tiny veggies -- an orange pepper, a small cucumber and a tomato. I ate the dry omelet, drank the water, and had the cuke and pepper. I saved the biscuit and fruit bar for the future and let the rest sit there. Then a small cup of coffee (my final caffeine hurrah...it was about 3am, NJ time so I hope I am able to sleep by Wednesday). The usual end of flight routine (solicitation for duty free, asking for donations of pocket change to the "Small Change, Big Dreams" charity, thankyouforflying etc. The noises of flaps and engines and such, plus the lights start getting brighter. No mention is made of customs declarations. In the olden days (gather round kids) we had to fill out a declaration about what we were bringing in. There was worry about truth and lies, about what counts for what, and no one had a pen anyway. This time, nothing.

With 40 minutes left the captain announces that we are at 10,000 feet and will begin descending soon. This must be some important developmental milestone but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do. We are now going only 282 mph because maybe there is a cop outside or something.

Landing at 4:46AM and off the plane, through passport control (why are all airport workers so grumpy?) and by 5:05 I am at carousel 6, waiting for the baggage to come out (the sign says "15 minutes" but that reflects neither when the bags actually start coming out (5 minutes) or when MY bag comes out (30 minutes)). Then to the cab line to get me a ride home.

Laundry is being done. Much stuff has been put away. I am down and safe. Papers to grade, grades to compute, humans to interact with, last ditch carbs to eat. I sign off and remain ever, humbly yours.