If people tell you that you need to be more flexible and patient in your life, the best way to learn is to do some international travel on standby basis.

My Patience 101 class met on September 16th at the Hamburg airport. I arrived alone (except for 2 very heavy bags), en route to Frankfurt where I would meet up with Soenke for a joyous flight back to the land of plentiful sunshine, fish tacos, palm trees, and guacamole (I was a little homesick…). At the gate counter, I nicely asked the agent if there were seats available for the flight. Realizing that I was a standby traveler, and a non-German-speaking one at that, she looked at me with no small measure of disdain and announced smugly that the flight was overbooked. I smiled even bigger and asked if I could put my name on a jump seat list. She shrugged and replied “…. IF I print one, I will announce it…”, as if she would do the world a magnificent favor by doing so. With my face about to break with excessive smiling, I asked if she could please announce the jump seat list in English. This was clearly *too much!*… I had exceeded the limit of all reasonable request. She said nothing out loud, but her raised eyebrow and cold grimace said “listen you stupid American bimbo, you are lucky to BE in this country and it is preposterous that you attempt to travel our great national airline at employee rates! You should be deported!”

I put my tail between my legs and retreated to a corner of the waiting room, relieved that at the last minute I had decided NOT to wear my favorite traveling shirt, which says “BARBIE” in big purple letters across the front…

Moments later, I saw the jump seat list come off the printer, and heard the announcement in German. (Bee-otch!) I triumphantly dashed to the front, only to be surrounded by deadheading pilots (stripes everywhere). Sigh… I could see that a jump seat was not in my future.

As my dreams of chips and guacamole were just about to slip away for good, I heard the names of standby passengers being called who would receive boarding passes. The very last one was MINE. I bounded to the front and grabbed my business-class boarding pass with great joy and a heartfelt “dankeschoen!”. Both agents looked HORRIFIED that they had made the terrible mistake of issuing ME one, but I dashed into the gate tunnel with a cheery “TSCHUSS!” before they could change their mind. (Jen 1, gate agents 0.)

And so thus concluded my Patience 101 class. Little did I know that Patience 201 and Flexibility 301 awaited me in Frankfurt.

With my cup overflowing, I found Soenke awaiting my exit from the domestic terminal. He brought me down to earth with the news that our flight to LA was also well overbooked. I reminded him to “visualize us IN the plane….” then with that helpful piece of advice we headed off to the international terminal and all the extra US security procedures (I hope other passengers feel more safe knowing that the area in between my breasts has been personally checked to confirm no explosives are hidden there).

Imagine our surprise when we finally arrived at our gate and found about 60 or 70 people in line at the counter, with very few in the waiting area. What was going on? Soenke dutifully queued up, while I guarded our carry-ons off to the side and amused myself with standing-yoga and some stretching. No less than one hour passed, and Soenke had advanced only a few feet. The counter agents seemed not to notice that their passengers were quietly aging and growing grey hair while blocking the entire hallway to the rest of the terminal. A little sleuthing revealed that computer glitches had screwed up the passenger list, and boarding passes were unable to be issued anywhere other than at the gate. With 300+ ticketed passengers, that was no small problem.

I cruised around and located a small group of anxious standbys. We began chatting with a few, including a stranded, red-headed Southwest Airlines flight attendant, a California-Asian gal named Grace, and a Swiss mother with her toddler. The redheaded gal was out of money and extremely anxious to get back to her kid in Sacramento, California. She had no idea how to ask for a jump seat. I said “you put a big smile on your face, fluff your hair, and hope the captain comes out! The people at the desk are no help.” And glory be, the captain DID come out! I suspect he was just trying the find out when the heck he could get his bird off the ground, since the flight seemed interminably delayed. I rushed up and politely begged a jumpseat for my new friend, and amazingly, he agreed! She gave me a big hug and disappeared down the boarding ramp. I hope she enjoyed sitting on the equivalent of a cheap beach chair for 11 hours.

In any case, this was a boarding ramp that we were not destined to see. After another half hour commiserating with the standbys, we saw the 747 back up and head out. That was that. A ticketed passenger exploded when he realized that a standby girl had been given an upgraded (and HIGHLY coveted) first-class boarding pass at the last minute……a seat that was rightfully his. Ouch!! So we all trotted off to a new set of lines at the Lufthansa transfer center and ticket desk. Lots of fun there, especially being informed that there was no way we could leave the country by air that day short of chartering our own jet. Natalie tried to work a better deal while I entertained her daughter with some hula dancing and belly button games. The baby was amused, but there were still no flights. After Soenke showed Grace how to use the pay telephones and Natalie drifted off towards the Sheraton, we optimistically left our luggage in Lufthansa hands, rented a car and headed for the NH Hotel. Nothing like a good meal, a glass of wine, and a comfy bed to administer the proper attitude adjustment!

The next morning, we put yesterday’s clothes back on (yes, even underwear), and headed back to the airport. Team Standby had a happy reunion at gate B26. We kept a safe distance from the gate agents (who prided themselves in surpassing all prior rudeness records). Soenke had gone to the Lufthansa employee base and picked up some standby tickets to get us to LA through NY if necessary, so we were covered. But, the fates were good to us, and at the last minute we received two coveted business class boarding passes. We ran a few victory laps through the airport, enjoyed a ticker-tape parade, then boarded the plane with Queen’s “We Are The Champions” blaring in the background. Nothing like a little scarcity to make you REAAAAAAALLY appreciate such a very good thing.

We never did find out what happened with our pal Natalie & her daughter. Hopefully they are not still hanging out in the international terminal! If so, maybe we will see them in Tom Hanks next movie, “Terminal – The Sequel”.

And so concludes our latest Flexibility and Patience classes…

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Photo of Team Standby:

I finally get my fish taco!

Soenke appreciates our California palm trees: