Greetings from Heathrow, where each successive anxious beat of my heart reminds me that one should never travel on Christmas Eve. There is no festive joy here - except, perhaps, when I finally emerged from the shoe scanner (that’s a new one) to find a young woman proffering shot glasses filled with free samples of some brown creme liquer. Of course, I’m simply not a hard enough woman to start drinking before nine in the morning, but nonetheless I sort of appreciated the acknowledgement that the excruciating journey we had just taken through security might require the consumption of a strong, restorative drink.
Anyway: my flight is overbooked. On Christmas Eve? Surprise! So they handed me a sheet of paper in the first of the multitude of queues (queuetituldes?) I have stood in this morning, informing me that if I volunteered to give up my seat they would put me on the next available flight and give me $1,000 free travel. With visions of a much-longed-for beach holiday dancing in my intractably mercenary head, I raised my hand. ‘I might give up my seat,’ I said. ‘Oh, thank you,’ said the lady at the desk. ‘Here is a special sheet of paper to express our gratitude.’
Or rather, a special sheet of paper that explains the terms and conditions, which include travel only within the lower 48 US states (not great, but I do want to visit my brother in California) and the fact that it seems that my sort of vague expression of interest has actually committed me to being one of these generous volunteers, so if they, say, offer me a flight to Baltimore via Dubai, in the cargo hold, I have to take it.
But I’m trying to be optimistic: maybe I’ll get a seat in business class on a flight to JFK or Dulles and actually get there faster than currently scheduled, via Chicago. That would be a Christmas miracle.
