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My trip to the airport: I dragged my box with my bike inside to the Loyala stop and onto the CTA train, where I ran into Kate, a girl I had met when asking directions two days before. She wore the same black beads both days. We talked and exchanged e-mail addresses, and I got off the train to transfer to the Foster bus. I had made handles out of packing tape, thinking I could carry the box, but I ended up using them to drag it instead the two blocks to the bus stop, missing four different Foster buses that went by. A Latino guy helped me across the street, but the Latino bus driver shook his finger at me and refused to let me on the bus. After a lot of wordless gestures, I was left alone on the curb.
So I called my brother Matt, saying, “I need help to carry this box back to the train and then through the airport!” We both knew that time was running low. As I waited for him to join me, another bus came up and the driver allowed me to get on. As I pushed my oversized box between the hand-rails of the door, he kept teasing me. “You have to pay for him, too!” he said. “Really?” I asked, discouraged, but one of the passengers, an older black man, just laughed, and I got the joke. On the bus, I called Matt again to ask him to trail me to the airport. There was no way I could get from the bus to the train at the Jefferson Park CTA station, and then from the CTA through the airport escalators and long walks to the check-in counter.
Thirty minutes later, I dragged my box off the bus. I had a good 20 meters to get to the escalator to the platform, when a guy who was tooling around on an ice-cream-vending-cycle (one with a big fridge out front) offered to put my box on his rig and roll it in for me, but only if I bought some ice cream. So I bought a basic ice cream sandwich ($2), and he did the rest, dropping me off at the turnstiles. I dragged it through and then made the last 10 feet to the escalator, when I heard the train coming. It was a mad rush to get the box through the door.
I called Matt with an update and asked him to follow me to the airport. He had just gotten off the bus and said he’d take the next train. I ate my melting ice-cream sandwich. The train neared O’Hare but then spent an extra 15 minutes standing, and when I finally got off and pushed my box onto the platform, there was Kate. She waved, laughed, and pretended not to be too impressed. While she helped me out of the station and through the turnstiles, where I could get a luggage trolley, she said she had taken the slower but easier route, going into the Loop on the Red Line and transferring to the Blue Line to O’Hare.
Getting a luggage trolley was another process. There was only one, but someone else had it, a guy who had just a newspaper to transport. I asked, but he refused to let me have it. Luckily he worked there, and his boss was watching. A few minutes later I had the luggage trolley and was on my way to the international terminal.
On the way I ran into Matt, who had this big grin, wild eyes, and poofy hair. No telling what he was thinking, finding me all the way there, with the luxury of pushing my box along in a luggage trolley. He walked me to the ticket counter, where a mean-looking ground agent proceeded to charge me $100 because the box was oversize. She next wanted to charge me an extra $25 because it was also overweight, but at that point I just said that would leave me with no money at all. So she took off the overweight charge. Lucky for me, Matt was there to give me all the cash he had on him. A little while later I took off with $30 in my pocket (but no cash card or credit card), on a plane to Venice.
Questions Are Power 