Saved by a sparkly hat
On our way home from vacation, we left ourselves plenty of time at the airport to hit the duty free and not be rushed. We found ourselves with over an hour to spare at the departure gate so we decided to take some photos of Maestro, looking only as Maestro could. He arrived at the airport wearing board shorts and a t-shirt, but with his suit jacket and shirt hanging over his suitcase so they wouldn’t get squished inside. Once inside however, it was just chilly enough that he needed to wear the jacket and shirt. (The conversation went something like this …. Maestro: “I’m a bit cold.” Me: “So says the man holding a jacket and shirt.”) Professional work attire on top, casual beach on the bottom – that’s Maestro! We made quite the couple as I was wearing a sparkly party hat, dress, and flip flops.
So we messed around and took a bunch of photos around the departure gate, and I sat down to start writing weeks of vacation stories. Another woman heading to the same destination dropped by and asked if we were on the same flight and we said, yes, we’re on the same flight and this is the correct gate. She went off to go shopping and we continued to wait patiently. I went back to writing, and we both failed to notice that no one else had sat down around us for the flight. And that it was past the scheduled start time for boarding. And when I looked up, the departure gate changed from our destination to Philadelphia, PA. “Oh shit! Maestro – this isn’t our gate anymore!” I swear I didn’t hear any announcement of a gate change! We grabbed our stuff, rushed to a departure board and found our new gate, thankfully only 3 away from where we were sitting. As we ran towards the gate, we could hear the final boarding call for our flight. We ran to the gate and thrust our boarding passes to the attendants. At the moment, the woman from earlier, who went shopping, ran up behind us in a panic. “Oh my God! I saw you and your sparkly hat running toward a different gate and I ran out of the store! I knew I had to follow the sparkly hat! I would’ve missed the flight except for the hat!”
The three of us were the last people to board the flight, and laughed at the idea that sparkly hat made all the difference. We ended up sitting next to each other on the flight, as we told the sparkly hat story to others sitting close by. She introduced herself – Tina – and we found out she didn’t live too far from us. She shared some quesadillas with us to thank us (peanut butter and ham … interesting combination), and Maestro proceeded to charm and entertain her with his stories. Tina also had well over an hour for her next connecting flight, so we arranged to have drinks and carry on chatting. She was funny, crazy, and open-minded – exactly our kind of person! After customs, we thought we would meet her in the same area for connecting flights. But she was no where to be found, so we went off to the best pub in the airport (according to our gate shuttle drivers!). We were halfway into our burgers when Tina arrived! “I hoped to find you guys here! People told me it was the best pub here!” she exclaimed. And so our airport friendship with Tina spanned 2 countries, 2 airports, and 6 hours in between. And it all started because of a sparkly hat.
