Get Me To The Plane On Time!!!

We were running late. In fact, we had been running late all day. The day was finally here and the thought was so surreal that it resulted in a deep confusion. Today was the day; we were finally en route to Kenya. But we were going to miss our plane if we had to wait in the queue for passport control much longer. After what felt like a million lifetimes we finally made it to the front of the queue and I rushed over to the counter with my passport leaving Rob to wait for the next opening.

I don’t know what it is about speaking to officials but every time I do it I get super nervous. I know for a fact that my passport is legitimate, and I have triple checked every single Kenyan website I could find to make sure that I have the correct documentation and yet as I walked up to that counter my stomach did a backflip and I felt my knees wanting desperately to give way or flee in the opposite direction. I pushed on and made it to the counter where the woman barely looked at me and merely glanced over my passport before stamping the page and calling out urgently to the queue behind me; “Next!”

I was through. I was in No Man’s Land. I was in the beautiful world of DUTY FREE and I sure as hell wasn’t going to miss up this opportunity, no matter how late I was. Rob and I made a beeline for the booze section and made our selection as quickly as possible before rushing through to our gate and to my utter relief the gate was still open. I breathed for the first time in about ten minutes and was just about to make it through to the gate when I realised that Rob had disappeared to find a toilet.

The woman at the gate (I’m sure she has an official title but I can’t for the life of me imagine what it could be) was staring at me and finally said; “If you’re planning on getting onto this plane you better get through here. We’re busy throwing people off the plane.”

“I’m waiting for a friend.”

“Well, you better call him. He has thirty seconds.”

Well, I faced a bit of a dilemma. I could wait for him and we both might miss our flight or I could just abandon him. Oh, who am I kidding? There was no dilemma. I wasn’t risking my holiday because of some guy with a full bladder. Once I’d made it through the gate however I thought it would only be fair of me to give him a call and rush him. I didn’t consider the nasty effects that a phone call half way through a pee could have on a public toilet and as the thought dawned on me I noticed with relief that Rob was actually already on his way back to the plane.

Finally we had made it onto the plane. Now all we could do was wait (and drink).