I make no secret of my neurological struggles: the “more than migraine, less than seizure” diagnosis that forced early retirement, the clinical depression and anxiety. Lots of people deal with the same.
It does, however, make air travel difficult.
Up until about 2010, I flew quite a lot for business, sometimes for pleasure, overseas a half dozen times, and I was so comfortable flying that I typically fell asleep as we were lifting off and didn’t wake until we touched down. The only things I stayed awake on was Army helicopters, and then only because the view was so amazing!
Since then, I’ve flown only twice. Once to Las Vegas at a friend’s request for companionship at a Nine Inch Nails concert. I was a wreck arriving in LV; so overstimulated that I nearly had to be led by the hand to their car. (The concert itself proved to be a different story. Loud, but such a feeling of clan in the auditorium that I felt safe screaming along with the rest, “Head like a hole! Black as your soul! I’d rather die than give you control!”)
So earlier this year, flying to Texas on a visit to my dad, I followed a friend’s advice and called ahead to say I’d need some help finding my way from gate to gate at the stopover.
I made it clear that it was a neurological condition. But picking up my tickets, I was asked if I wanted an attendant with a wheelchair. “No. I’m not crippled. I just wanted some help finding the gate, so I wouldn’t have to sweat it.” But there was no one to guide, only push, so I said, “Tell you what. I’ll find it myself.”
Arriving in Dallas for a switch of planes, I found a line of wheelchairs waiting for passengers to exit, and I walked past, too flustered to ask if one was for me, and too able-bodied to feel comfortable with someone pushing me up that ramp and across the airport. At the final stop, my stepmom met me outside the gate, took me to the luggage carousel, and drove me to their home.
Where the airline called to ask if I’d picked up the wrong luggage. For the first time in my life, I had! My overstimulated and fatigued brain had failed me! (Fortunately it was only about a 20-minute drive back, and the guy who owned the luggage was extremely kind about my mistake.)
So, a week later, flying back, I swallowed my pride and rode in a wheelchair. The woman pushing me was pleasantly chatty. Security was a breeze for an “invalid.” And the only person who boarded before me was clearly an Air Marshall. Even First Class came after.
At the Dallas stopover, I again accepted a wheelchair, and a young Hispanic man about 3/4ths my size (I’m 5′ 10″ and 190 lbs) labored to push me up that ramp and halfway across the airport. Dropping me off, he stood a moment, catching his breath, and left looking frazzled.
A few minutes later, having caught my mental breath, I wondered, “Is it acceptable to tip airline employees?” Google said that not only is it customary, they don’t actually work for the airlines. It’s tip/wage work.
What the fuck? Nowhere in the airport was there any indication that these people were laboring for tips, that they were servers instead of staff! It should have been posted at the ticket gate, or on the wheelchairs. It should have been mentioned online, when I first requested it. Somewhere!
That kindly woman who pushed me all the way to the door of the plane. That young man who sweated to get me across the Dallas airport. Neither had mentioned it, and from my own experience as a waiter, I’m betting they can’t.
I don’t hate Capitalism. But I hate American Capitalism for the ways in which it preys upon the poor. Tipped wage—still $2.13 an hour since 1991—is a despicable system. It tries to justify less than minimum wage by leaving the onus on the server and the customer.
Fine, let’s do the same for the business itself. Have restaurant menus list items at a price just above cost, then rely upon the customer’s satisfaction and generosity to pay more at the register. Lets do the same with department stores. With airlines. With Amazon and Tesla.
We frequently hear that the USA is a Christian nation, based upon Christian principles. But here’s another case in which the nation ignores the Christian “user’s manual,” the Bible, which teaches again and again and again that workers are to be treated honorably and fairly.
The Christian user’s manual says, “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me’” (Matthew 25:41-46).
Just another case in which it seems to me that Conservative Christianity is an oxymoron.
Nowadays, there’s no excuse for Christians not to know their Bible, not to carry it with them everywhere. It’s available online for free, here, for example, in PDF and ebook format.
An Emanual, so to speak. Pun intended. “God with us,” when spelled correctly. If only that were true.