Do Paralell Universes Use Three-Letter Airport Codes?

Occasionally, while going about my daily business I'll pause and realize that I am thousands of miles away from home, or that just a few hours earlier I had entirely different plans.

Sometimes it makes me laugh, sometimes it frustrates me, but what really surprises me is how unsurprising it is to find myself in such situations.

I guess that's why yesterday's adventures so deeply affected me. I felt like I had not only traveled across state lines, but right through to some other state of mind.

I'll call it Ohio.

Scheduling called me on Monday, just as I was wrapping up a wonderful, if exhausting, four days at home in Annapolis filled with the places, people and activities of my pre-airline life. I was to sit airport alert at 5:30 the next morning.

Somehow I made it to EWR on time and settled into my preferred Airport Alert position: earplugs, eye mask, by body supported in the uneven curves of the Lazy Boy filled in by airplane-issue pillows scrounged from the other couches. Just as I began to drift off the phone rang and my name was called. I was to be deadheaded to CLE (our smallest base) to sit airport alert there.

Now, I slept pretty hard on the deadhead flight (the flight attendant had to physically shake me awake when be landed), but wouldn't I have noticed if we slipped through some time-space continuum?

I sleepily stumbled down the CLE crew room and while I certainly recognized it as our crew room: the same institutional furniture, the same bank of dated computers, their screens glowing with the login page of our company network; everything seemed smaller, cleaner brighter. Like the set for a Disney movie about flight attendants.

Four hours later another girl and I were released to the hotel and on our way out of the crew room we spotted a flier for the "Employee Appreciation Ice Cream Social". They were literately giving away Ben and Jerry's just for working in Cleveland!

En route to the Holiday Inn the driver gave us a detailed summary of all the local amenities and suggested that we borrow bikes and head over to the trails down the streets.

After a solid nap I did just that, and soon found myself on the banks of the Rocky River, legs tingling from the leisurely three-mile ride, borrowed bike leaning against a lovely stone wall. Around me families with fathers picnicked and fished, pets and wildlife frolicked*, and ahead to my right a blissful young couple giggled as they staged kisses for their engagement announcement photos (and snuck real ones between shots).

Later in the evening, completely satisfied from my day and filled with the desire to share my delight with the online world, I biked over the the Border's bookstore to polish off my blog entry.

Journal and decaf coffee in hand (and knitting stashed in the bag under my arm), I decided to take a quick peek at the knitting books before putting pencil to paper. As I turned the corner the shelves parted to reveal a group of women happily knitting away in the comfy chairs by the window.

I stood speechless.

Of course that only lasted a few seconds, and I instantly made four new friends and a standing date to knit any Tuesday I was in town.

We knit, chatted and admired each other's work. Occasionally I would just shake my head in wonder at my day and the other ladies would laugh at how stunned I was by my good fortune. The apparent ringleader of this group (whose husband happened to be a pilot and who she couldn't wait to tell about this flying stranger) commented, "You should buy a lotto ticket before you leave town!"

This morning I woke up to the urgent ring of the hotel phone and the scheduler informed me that I was needed back to for another round of Airport Alert. She also mentioned that they just needed one reserve to stay the night, so she gave me option to stay in Clevland another night or go back to Newark.

Stay another night?!?! I'm ready to put in my transfer!


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* I apologize for the gratuitous use of the term "frolic", but the animals mentioned were in fact illustrating the exact defination of the word.