26 Hours Stuck in an O'Hairy Airport

Every once in a while, life decides to throw a random curve ball, and I frequently get strikes called against me. It just so happens that I hit a home run at one of these would-be-mishaps. The weather in DFW changed from sunshine to thunderstorms, and the AHS Orchestras’ flights were delayed. And then cancelled. We were stuck in O’Hare.
The annual orchestra trip took place in the much polluted city of Chicago. Four exciting days packed with Broadway musicals, Chicago Symphony master classes, and Navy Pier fun in The Windy City were unintentionally extended, thanks to the severe weather taking place near the DFW airport. Upon learning we were staying overnight, everybody went off in search of cheap contact cases and contact solutions, Sudoku books and crossword puzzles that were located at miscellaneous bookstores in the airport, and decks of cards that many assumed would keep them engaged for the length of time we were to stay there. For some unknown reason, tooth brushes and tooth paste could not be found.
At the first wave of realization we were stuck in an airport overnight, almost everyone was exuberant and hyped up. After two hours of wandering around from terminal to musky terminal filled with tile, dull cobalt carpet, and boring lighting, more than half of the myriad of orchestra students and chaperones were exhausted, peevish, and utterly aggravated. Around 9:00 P.M., the senior class and their chaperones were told they were to be escorted by security officers to get their luggage in order to have tooth brushes, pajamas, and other necessities in the morning. When they came back, the junior class was to depart after them, and so on. The seniors never came back.

Eventually, midnight approached, and we were herded to a large terminal where over one hundred small, forest green cots were set up. The students were instructed by several agitated chaperones that they were to acquire one plastic-wrapped pillow, one tattered felt blanket, and to put the carry-on luggage next to or on the selected cot. Naturally, the cots were taken from their original arrangement and set up according to their occupant’s desires. Kara, Anna, and I decided to start watching a DVD with the DVD player that Kara happened to have in her carry-on luggage, and had just selected a DVD to watch when a large group of disgruntled seniors and irate chaperones lumbered into the makeshift campsite. To add to their dismal behavior at being stuck in an overcrowded, somewhat unsanitary airport overnight, some security guards down at the luggage check-in area would not welcome them back into the terminals. They had been held back, and nobody else was allowed to receive their luggage. The mood the seniors and their chaperones were in proved to be extremely contagious, and many others were irked as they thought of the upcoming morning.
I admit that the prospect of sleeping on a lumpy green cot with an unknown smell and waking up at 4:00 A.M. to no tooth brush, hair brush, face cleanser, with my jeans and t-shirt still on did put a slight damper on my elated mood at 1:00 A.M., but I had other than looking forward to an unsanitary morning that would be started off by a stranger in a security officer uniform and badge, I was able to think of having a day all to myself and my friends. Before everyone could say a happy “good-night” to one another, the students were allowed to go to the bathroom. Anna, Kara and I took this opportunity to wander


around a foreign airport and take pictures of many situations we found hilarious, such as a sign that said, “Never be delayed again.” How ironic. In time, a bathroom was discovered, and after the small expedition was over, the wee hours of the morning found me and my two companions in a light slumber that lasted only three hours.
Although the rude awakening that robbed everybody of a good night’s sleep was slightly expected, it still abruptly crept up. At 4:00 in the morning, onlookers stared as a mob of high school students roamed, seemingly aimlessly, through the airport, probably carrying the slight stench of unwashed clothing, and lugging along bedraggled paraphernalia. The flight back home that had been rescheduled was canceled yet again due to the miserable weather. And those were canceled, too. To further degrade the situation, somebody’s socks were inadvertently flushed down a toilet in one of the muddled bathrooms next to a fresh-smelling Starbucks. By this time, almost every single person was swamped with fatigue, annoyance, frustration, accompanied by some bad morning breath. Everyone except the minuscule group I was in. This group included about eight people, and three hours into the day, even most of them were starting to fill up with the same bug that the rabble was infected with. Gradually, I started to feel wonderful. How often does a person get the chance to experience quarantine with nobody but friends, in a city hundreds of miles away from home?
The truth is that I enjoyed every minute of being stuck in an airport filled with a swarm of normal, unshaven, half-dead, completely clueless teenagers. The truth is that I enjoyed not having to worry about how I looked, or what anybody else thought of me. The truth is that I enjoyed the simplicity of having only the choice of either bonding with others, or being an irritated, fractious, cantankerous person. Perhaps the reason I was so optimistic about being stuck in an overpopulated airport was because I did not have to go through what the senior class did. Perhaps it was because I had always yearned to spend the night in an airport. I am not quite sure why the wholly unexpected event made my mood over the trip euphoric, but I know I enjoyed it.
Even if the security guards were rude and disdainful towards us, even if the flight plans were changed three times, even if a messy bathroom toilet had a sock accidentally flushed down it, and even if everyone had to play cards and Sudoku for ten hours whilst leaning against cold, heavy metal doors and sitting in stiff, uncomfortable waiting chairs, the whole experience improved my relationship with many different people, and it created many wonderful reminiscences. The whole point of the Chicago trip was to make it a trip filled with wonderful memories, anecdotes, and recollections- stories and miniature fairy tales of one’s own experience that one should never forget. And that was just what it was.