Leaving Egypt, Part IV: Bargaining

I returned to my classmates and we formed a small circle of anxiety and despair, waiting for that phone call, on a borrowed phone, with no familiar faces in sight. The digital clock on a far wall flipped forward. A few moments later, the call came in:

Neither the D.C. coordinator nor the travel agent several states away have copies of our plane tickets on them. They both are going to head to their respective offices in D.C. and Louisville to fax the copies. At 10:00 at night. It will be 10-15 minutes.

We watched the clock count forward some more. Tried not to let our imaginations carry us away to irreparable insanity. Could we possibly make this flight? Leaving the borrowed phone with my classmates, I go to the bathroom. Mostly to kill time, also to move my limbs. Would the call have come in by the time I returned? It hadn’t. We continued to sit on our suitcases on the floor in front of the ticketing stations. This shouldn’t have been so difficult.

Finally the call comes in. The copies have been faxed. I return the borrowed phone to its amused owner, thank him graciously, and inform him that he probably has 15 pounds remaining from the 20 I loaded. So no skin off his back for loaning us his phone.

We run to the ticket booth at 5 a.m., 25 minutes before the departure time. The copies should be there! We would like our tickets reissued! But…no one is hurrying, why aren’t they hurrying?! We need to catch this flight and have only 25 minutes!
The ticket agent shrugs. “It is too late,” she says, and turns blue-lined brown eyes back to her nightly schedule. “The gate closes 45 minutes before departure.”

Wait. Really? Like, really? Y3ANY, REALLY?! What are our options? “You can change your flight and leave tomorrow, but that will be a $200 rebooking fee. Or you can buy a new flight.”

We look at each other. And look back at her. And beg. Please. PLEASE, can we get on this flight? We’ll run, we’ll take one of those fat-people carts that drive from gate to gate. We’ll do anything. ANYTHING. Just get us on that flight, that flight which doesn’t even leave for 20 minutes!

She shrugs. “I am very sorry.”

Fuck.