Thank You For Not Doing Better Southwest Airlines PART ONE

   ACT 1

    Last week, Jim and I visited Jim's cousin in Titusville. There is a lot to say about our trips to Florida, most of which we begin with "Florida man...." regardless of the tale, because we think we're hilarious. This blog is about the airline called Southwest, and how they have managed to fail at just about everything this week. My research is first hand, as I was one of the thousands of passengers stranded due to their vague "tech connectivity issue". There are no names to change to protect any innocence, as I'll never see any of these people again.  Also, I swore to focus on only the funny or the positive when I started writing again, but this experience will not be either. Snarky is the best I can do. 

   The first mistake I made, right out of the cannon, was letting anxiety drive the bus. When Jim and I awoke on Tuesday and realized the flight time had been written down wrong--by five hours---I said "I'm not hanging around here to wait. I'm ready to go." As background, you should know that:  A) I will flip out when travel plans are not scheduled to leave in the morning (flight, car trip, yoga class- all of it). I have a very specific anxiety that counts hours and notes that most flights get cancelled after noon, snow storms worsen in the afternoons, I need to get moving early, period. I've always credited this--before this adventure when I realized it was destructive anxiety, not  just a fun glitch in my personality--to being "farm people" who get everything done before dark. Whenever my cousins were in Denver for family reunions, we always went to Elitch's and we always, always arrived right when they opened because it always, always rained at 3 pm and we wanted to get as much fun crammed in as possible. So. There's that. B) My anxiety has increased exponentially the last few years. Most of you know why. C) I have control issues.

    So when Jim said the flight was written down wrong, I said "Change it, I'll drive to the airport". Instead of a non stop, which we had scheduled and I need (I also will not do layovers or flights that stop, that's another Fun Glitch In My Personality) we had no choice but to pay to switch to an earlier flight that had a stop in Chicago. I hated everything about the situation, but needed to at least be On My Way Home. This is what happens when anxiety drives the bus. I'm a delight. This is not problematic in most of my life, since I'm a parent and teacher, I'm used to breathing, becoming hyper focused and figuring out the right choice for the moment. But in this case, I'm not trying to get 18 kids home from NYC, or herded through opening night, or through a missed birthday party. It was just me managing me and it went horribly wrong.

   The first clue at the Orlando airport that something may be amiss besides my melting psyche, was the lack of a plane at our gate ten minutes before boarding time. At that moment, Tuesday 15 June, we had not checked the news reports. We did not know that the day before Southwest had begun to have "technical issues" with a "third party weather application" that had cancelled flights. I texted Harper and Genoa at home and said "I think there's a problem, we don't have a plane." We left Orlando late, but were headed to Chicago just fine. 

    We arrived in Chicago and the flight crew said "If Chicago is your final destination, please deplane and take your personal belongings. If Denver is your destination, please remain on the plane, we will count you before we take off again." So we waited, and everyone but us disembarked, and then the flight attendant said, this is word for word "The flight has been cancelled. Please get off the plane and go to gate M5 for information." That was some kinda bedside manner, huh? Confused, and believing that we needed to hurry to get on another flight, the 30 or so of us still on the plane ran down the concourse. We were met by stone faced clerks who simply put us on another flight, with no explanation as to why ours was cancelled. Zombie apocalypse? Mechanical issues? Nuclear warhead? It could have been anything. This is when I started to come apart. I started crying---not audibly, just tears streaming down my face---when she said "We can get you out of here tonight." TONIGHT?!?!??! WHAT???? What are you TALKING about? I'm supposed to be home in three hours, three hours, count them: three. My anxiety may be tied to control issues, hold please. "You don't have a gate yet, but here is your boarding pass." I looked at Jim and said "This isn't a real flight. What the hell is actually going on?"

    I calmed down enough to get on Facebook, which is a great ranting journal for me, I usually go back and delete stuff if it's insane, and a friend in Dallas attached a NYT article about the "technical connectivity issues" Southwest was having. 500 flights cancelled, 1500 delayed. Jim and I shook our heads. I guess we live in Chicago now. We wandered the airport looking at monitors, hoping our flight number would appear. I helped a family flying from Tuscany to Istanbul in finding their gate. Why are they at O'Hare? They weren't flying Southwest. This encounter still vexes me, and added to my panic. If international flights were being held up in Chicago, WTF was actually going on? We walked the entire concourse looking for a beer. Nothing was open, none of the gift shops and few of the sandwich shops and even if it was, they did not have beer. 

    Weirdly Southwest is in the International Flight concourse, which has not been updated since the 1980's. There are no outlets to plug in your cell phone, and one restaurant. The line was long, and we saw several of our fellow "Cancellarians" ( I made it up, it sounded funny) in line. We chatted them up as we waited for someone to vacate a table in the astonishingly small restaurant. Jim's logic--he's not wrong---was if he could get a beer in me, we might live through this. We made friends with a lovely mom of two boys, maybe 14 and 10, one a lovely deep red head, who seemed undaunted by any of the delays. They were booked on the 6.30 pm flight, that had been delayed almost immediately, but they had a gate #(7), which made their flight more "real", we met a couple who were booked on the Chicago to Denver leg of our flight and found out it was cancelled ten minutes before boarding via the app---they easily could have stayed at their hotel and waited it out if Southwest had been honest with them much earlier, and Bree and David, 25 year old besties returning from their Disney/Universal/Harry Potter vacation. We invited David and Bree to sit with us, since tables were scarce and it seemed rude to take up two tables. We sat with them for two and half hours as we waited for a gate number to be revealed somewhere. None of the monitors had our flight on it, and they couldn't find it on their apps. We finally received a gate number, M11, which was located next to the restaurant. We could see there were passengers in Burkas and very well dressed, and realized that the gate itself was for British Airways. The sign at M11 still had the Dubai departure information, and the station that a Southwest employee should man to help passengers was empty.

    The new, "imaginary" flight (I had a lot of jokes in my head about Wonder Woman's plane) was to board at 7:45 for an 8:15 departure. We left the restaurant at 6.30, by then we'd been in O'Hare for three and a half hours. We walked around the mostly closed concourse trying to locate an outlet to charge our phones. Bree had a battery powered charger that worked for a bit and then quit. We kept eying the gate, wondering when people who looked like us---haggard and stressed---would start arriving. Nobody showing up at this point looked like they'd been cancelled, which was another red flag. If nobody is waiting, the flight is not real. Jim and I walked to gate 7 to chat up our new friend, and she said they still didn't have a plane or any info other than they were delayed until 7.45. Still just as chill as iced tea, her family was just sitting calmly, reading and playing on their phones. I walked to gate 11 for the fifteenth time at 7 pm, and the monitor had changed to say DENVER. I looked at Mike and said "OK, we have a real gate. Maybe we'll get a plane." He and I had made a list of things that needed to happen before we relaxed. At 7.30 the gate began to fill up with more haggard looking folks like us, yet no Southwest employee ever emerged. We were all huddled around the three outlets when at 7:30, a guy we'd been talking to got a notice on his SW app that the flight was cancelled. There was still no SW employee at the gate, or any announcement. This is where anxiety turned to absolute hatred. I was no longer anxious about getting home, but angry that I was being lied to by the airline. There is no excuse for lack of communication my friends. Hire a stage manager.  What follows is a list of what we witnessed as word of the cancellation spread:

    A well dressed man approached me and asked if the flight was cancelled. I said "That's what we heard, but the site crashed so nobody knows." He looked over at his wife, who was clutching the hands of their two beautiful children, maybe five and seven, and she shook her head. The oldest of their daughters immediately broke and began quietly sobbing. If you weren't looking at her broken little face you wouldn't have known, but her big eyes were swimming with tears that then streamed down her face. Her younger sister was looing at her for some kind of reassurance, and finding none, clutched her stuffed "Sully" and stared into space.

    The couple who were just trying to get to Denver from Chicago were on the app when it crashed. They were pretty relaxed, having been at Lake Michigan all week and in no real hurry to get home, but annoyed that before the app crashed, they seemed to have been involuntarily rebooked to Baltimore.

    Bree curled into a ball and said "I'm over this shit, man, I Am Over It." Bree travels for her job, she continued to travel during Covid. This is unprecedented in her experience. She is an explosives expert with a neck tattoo. When this person curls into a ball it's hard to stay calm. Mike got up to walk the concourse.

     Another family, two parents and two teenage sons, looked wound up tightly. Jim watched as the older son ducked around a corner with his phone (we assume to check the cancellation) and returned with the news. The younger son said something teenagey and innocuous, like he was missing his gaming night, and his mom came unhinged. She immediately lit into him at large decibels about how he had nothing to complain about because he didn't have a job he needed to get to tomorrow. She was screaming. They were given a wide berth as the other travelers all cursed their phones and looked around for someone-anyone-wearing a Southwest uniform. Suddenly Bree was on her feet and Mike looked at us and said "GATE 7, go to gate 7". Like the zombies were headed right for us and gate 7 had a zombie proof steel door we could all hide behind,  or the eight legged freaks had breached the mall doors, and the mass exodus began. Three elderly women who were headed for gate 11 saw us moving out, and locked step with me asking if the flight was cancelled. I said "It appears so, we're going to Gate 7 for info." She put up her arms like a mall walker and said "We'll follow you then!"

     At gate 7 I saw our chillax friends, still seated at the gate, and looked at the time. By then it was 7.40 and they were clearly not boarding for a flight that still said "DEPARTING 7:45 PM" on the board. "What's up?" I asked from my place in the middle of the increasingly long line. "We don't have a pilot," she shrugged.  I shrugged back "We got cancelled, " and she shook her head "I hope you get home." I strained a smile back and said "You too."

     While in line at gate 7, the family with the two small girls started chatting with us a bit. They were originally booked on the Tuesday morning non stop to Denver from Orlando, and then Monday she said the app just "Switched us to this flight, with no explanation. There is a reason I don't want a stop flight with children. Why would they just assume I was OK with it?" I told her the couple we had met who had been at Lake Michigan received a notice a few minutes ago that they had been unknowingly booked on a flight to Baltimore, right before his app crashed. The mom said they'd been put on stand by on the gate 7 flight, then transferred to the cancelled gate 11 flight ten minutes before it was cancelled. The girls were inconsolable at this point, quietly sobbing and eyes wide. I admired how hard they were trying to hold it together, to not go full on screaming tantrum right there. She looked at her husband and said "I can't, will you please do whatever here, get us on a flight tomorrow. I've got to put these two to bed. I'm getting a hotel." All very leveled and reasonable, I recognized her state immediately. Every mom knows it. You shift into neutral where there are no emotions, and all you do is visualize the tunnel you need to travel to get your children settled, fed, safe. They had left Orlando at 8 am that day. It was now coming up on 8 pm and their entire day had been spent in O'Hare. And nobody had been given any explanations, or food vouchers, or hotel vouchers. Nothing.

     The poor, overwhelmed customer service guy at gate 7- I looked it up, he's probably making $15 an hour- got on the mike to tell us all to now go to gate 1. There are no more flights tonight, this one is full, please go to gate 1 to schedule a flight tomorrow. So, again, we all turned and herded ourselves down the concourse to line up, again, search for an outlet, again, and wait to hear our fate. There were two kids in their twenties right in front of us worried about missing their shifts at wherever they work in Denver in the morning. Bree and Mike were in front of them. Gate 1 had a sign that said BALTIMORE CANCELLED and NASHVILLE DELAYED. While we were standing there, the Nashville flight began to board amid cheers. The customer service employees were clearly deeply connected to this group, whose flight had been delayed for who knew how long, and started the celebration. The clerk stuck dealing with us was less than enthusiastic. An older woman, clearly confused and clutching a boarding pass, could not get any help from the clerk who was alone, trying to deal with a line of 30 people. A security guard ( I assume, his uniform was different) was able to talk to her and I do not know what happened to her, but I hope she got her questions answered and a flight home.

      We figured out they're pushing people onto the Nashville flight, promising them a connecting flight to Denver from there. I'm beside myself by now, Stop Lying To Us. I looked it up online and I know the FAA straight up grounded Southwest for 45 minutes that afternoon, and the problem is not fixed. You cancelled my flight while I was on the plane with no explanation. You then sent me to an imaginary flight five hours later, at gate 11, where there was no customer service rep to help anyone. to tell us what to do next. This was the Fuck  You Southwest moment. Then the clerk looked at me (this is our conversation, verbatim)

    Me: "We're in the same situation, we need to get home to Denver."

    Her: "We can put you on this flight to Nashville. There is a connection to Denver."

    Me: "Nope. I do not trust your airline. I don't think the flight is real. You'll cancel it or delay it. We're going from here to Denver."

    Her: "We have a flight at 12.45 tomorrow."

    Me: "Nothing earlier?"

    Her: "All booked."

    Me:" Okay, we'll do that. Can we at least get a hotel voucher since we're stuck here?"

    Her: "We are not authorized to do that."

    Me:( I am editing out my impressive conjugations of expletives for those who don't like it when I cuss) "You are joking with me. You cancelled two fights, stranded me in Chicago and now are saying my choices are to fly to Nashville and likely get stranded there, or sleep in the airport."

    Her: Blink. Blink.

    Me: "So Many Expletives"

    Her: Writing the customer service phone number on the back of our boarding pass.

    Me: Walks away before committing a crime.

                               End Act 1

Thank You For Not Doing Better Southwest Airlines Part Two

  Act 2

    This is the moment I lost it completely, and this is the moment I explain to you why.

I am not a comedian trying to get to a gig, and this FUBAR is costing me money. I am not a CEA desperate to get to a meeting, and this FUBAR is costing me my company's future. I am not a Starbucks employee who is going to miss my shift. I am not a parent holding a child who is exhausted. It didn't matter, this woman was not interested, kind or in any way compassionate to anyone. All were met with the same blank stare, the same cold voice and the complete lack of compassion. There was no apology, not even a twinge of human concern or acknowledgment that this sucks. Nothing. NADA. 

    That's why I lost it. It was not my own anxiety, it was the complete lack of compassion coming off of someone who is supposed to help. Nobody mattered. Just coming out of Covid, when we spent so much time caring about other people's health, wearing masks, teaching and learning from home and now, we're allowed to finally fly and visit family, and we are  confronted with the attitude that we'd all forgotten: You Don't Matter.  

    I could no longer see, I called my mom (yes, I am 55 and I called my mom, so what?) Completely hysterical. Her response, in a nutshell: "What the hell is wrong with you, pull it together, this is not OK." She wasn't wrong, she just misfired. It wasn't about me or my anxiety it was the realization that nothing has changed. However, I cannot control other people so the only thing do so was march over to the Frontier desk where a similarly disengaged clerk was clearly shutting down for the night, had a kind moment and took me through a secret security door to see if I could get a Frontier flight earlier than 12:45 on Wednesday. I met a security guard who would not let me go back the way I came, but instead walked me around security and the other concourse, patiently using a low voice and non combative words. I told him that Southwest was not offering vouchers, I was stuck in the airport with my husband ( who  I had abandoned back at the gate trying to get the internet to work on his phone, with no luck, while I hysterically lurched my ample Covid weight induced frame around the concourse) and I just want to go home. He was shocked to hear that SW was not doing vouchers, and knew peripherally that something had gone haywire based on the amount of traffic stuck at the airport. He walked me back to Jim, and then walked both of us to the exit as Jim said "I found a hotel. It has a bar. Let's just go."  The Security Supervisor's name was Robert Whittlock, and he was born in Des Moines, Iowa and he was my new best friend. 

     We then waited for 45 minutes for a shuttle that was supposed to take 15 minutes, with our friends who had driven to Lake Michigan. She's a provost at UNC, her kids both went to UNC and they were at the hotel across from us, also not able to get a shuttle because they were on the international side of the airport, and clearly we had some time to talk. They finally got frustrated and got an Uber. We said "See you tomorrow," as they were booked on the same 12:45 flight. Spoiler alert, we did not see them tomorrow. I hope they made it home.

      We shuttled to the Sheraton SOMETHING ( suites, maybe?) at O'Hare, and immediately started chatting up our fellow travelers. One young man told us he'd been booked out of Miami, but the storm (there was a storm in Florida as well on Tuesday, I may not have mentioned that) derailed his American Airlines flight, and he's stuck here tonight. American Airlines gave him a hotel voucher. Of Course They Did. I told him SW offered nothing, and their issue is THEIR FAULT and we decided only Acts of God get vouchers, not Acts of Men. He was a large man of color with a booming voice, it was a joy to hear his expletives and laugh projected throughout the lobby. He did not think SW is a good airline, and believed that we should sue.  We made him feel better about his situation. He was my second new best friend.

     Alex, working the front desk ( I looked it up, also making approximately $15 an hour, same as the customer service reps at SW) kindly located our reservation, gave us a lower rate all with a sympathetic air. I asked if there was a place we could get a toothbrush, as our luggage was God Knows Where, and she dove into a treasure trove under the desk, producing  hermetically sealed two toothbrushes, two toothpastes, two combs and two anti perspirants. Best Friend #3.

    We didn't even go to the room, we went straight to the bar, as it was 10 pm on a Tuesday and we were pretty sure they would close soon. Many other travelers came through, looking like us but with children, seeking food. Mario the bartender directed them to various options, pointing out that the Mc Donald's by the hotel was only drive through and would not take walk ups, for which he apologized. It's not his fault, but he apologized. When Jim asked him what time the bar closed, he said "When you are drunk and ready to go to bed." Best Friend #4.

    I got settled down after about six beers, and we agreed not to talk about what to do if the flight is cancelled tomorrow, for the sake of our marriage. We had not fought or even exchanged harsh words. Nobody blamed the other for anything. We had no idea we were like that, and after watching the meltdowns in the airport, I'd say we are lucky to have one another.

    I got up at 8 am and checked the SW flights. I put on the local news, who cheerfully informed me that Southwest had been having some technical difficulties, and many flights had been cancelled, but they were back and everything was moving forward. They then ran an interview with a woman from Chicago who was stuck at O'Hare when her flight was cancelled, but she was very cheerful and just happy to have the opportunity to fly after Covid.

    I hated her. She did not make the Best Friend List.

    The SW flights to Denver were being delayed and then cancelled starting at 6 am. I woke up Jim and said "Get a credit card, find a way, we're leaving by another airline." And We Did.        Because American Airlines was functioning, we got two of the last four seats. We weren't the only ones bailing on SW, who would not offer vouchers and will not refund the unused ticket because we wouldn't wait another eight hours in the airport. The 12:45 flight was delayed until 1:45, but I believe they got out. Jim said "I was happy to pay anything to not sit at a gate and wait to see if the flight was going to be cancelled."

    When we arrived at DIA, I literally kissed the ground. We had to sit separately, so I was waiting for Jim when he exited. He came through the jetway like Rocky Balboa, fists in the air and a huge smile on his face. It was awesome.

    The next task was to locate our luggage. Turns out that wasn't hard, as more than 1,000 bags had made it to DIA ahead of their owners. Yes, I wonder about that as well. Get me a government grant and I will investigate. The bags were all roped off into two sections, and ours was easily visible. The overwhelmed woman tasked with babysitting the bags actually recognized our name from receiving the bag, and was all smiles and patience. I thanked her for being such a kind person, and she just shrugged "None of this is my fault, I'm sorry it happened, but being rude isn't going to help any body."

    So, in conclusion, all in all, to sum up: I learned a lot about myself and my marriage, both of which are pretty awesome.  In my world, this is a true tragedy and I learned from it.

    Things To Remember About Traveling Cause It's Been A year:

    * Do not fly Southwest. 

    *If you're going to fly this summer of 21, have at least a grand in your debit account or on a credit card, do not plan on anything going the way you expect it to, and remember drinking counts as self medicating.

    * Do not travel with children.

        

                                            END

    

*I included the pay rates for this reason: when things started to get jammed up, I overheard a voice suggest that if you paid these people more, they would care more. I immediately looked up the pay rate for Chik Fil A employees. They make between eight and fourteen dollars an hour. In my mind, that ended that thesis. You are compassionate and kind, or you aren't. The next point in the essay I was writing in my head, is that there are billionaires who do not care, so your thesis does not hold water.

Saving Private Ryan

 

        I have a limited capacity for violence that is too realistic. Which is why I've Seen Schindler's List exactly once, and Saving Privat Ryan Twice.  It is not lost on me that both of these are Spielberg movies. Generationally, not surprising, but you also give him his propers when it comes to telling stories that stab your heart.

        Watching the second time, sitting in a hotel room in Titusville, Florida, as the rain falls and I fight my anxiety i am aware this is exactly the wrong movie for me to watch right now, but I clearly need to be AS ANXIOUS AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE in this moment, so...watching.

       All I have to say is this: when I watched this years ago, Giovanni Ribisi's role is the one that made me check out. Not the opening slaughter, or the insanity at the French village but the death of the medic. That whole scene was written and executed with such depth and humanity and loss that I never forgot it, and it remained the reason I said "I will never watch that movie again."  

        I turned on the TV in the room while I showered, and it rained, and Jim is with his cousin sorting out the estate stuff, and I opened the computer intending to write with the movie as background.

       Instead, I sat riveted, horrified, shredded by anxiety and hopping up occasionally to do a yoga stretch so I at least felt like I wasn't just...fermenting. I have no idea why that is the word chosen for this moment. As I watched Giovanni get shot again, and ask for morphine and know he's a goner, I was taken aback because the scene was in the wrong location. I had remembered that he died on an expanse of green, near a church. I have no idea where that came from, but when he was hit on a hellish landscape, not an expanse of green. Maybe that scene is somewhere else in the movie, I did join it late this time around. My mind inverted another scene with his death. Maybe to make it more peaceful. Less like a murder. I am obsessed with why or how my mind did this. I realized as the movie advanced, that I remembered which character lived and died, but not how. As if watching the movie had created a reaction to trauma in me. What is that about? I actually changed the location of a fictional character's death? 

       Nah, I just misremembered. I am not traumatized by a silly movie.

       I am also not watching it because I know it will make me cry and I really need a break, a safe break, right about now.

      As it's raining outside in Titusville, and Saving Private Ryan is on AMC, the anxiety spikes and a person sobs at a Spielberg blockbuster.

     Scene.

"How Do You Sleep In A Storm?"

  Jim goes to a church online, Union church in Baltimore. He just said this and I stopped cold.

  There is no answer immediately, 'cause it's a church, and he needs to fill time. It's like getting to the point of This Magic Weight Loss Remedy That Will Revolutionize Your Life, but you have to read pages of text..

   "I'm not sleeping, I'm fixing problems with my eyes closed." Noice.

   "I'll give you a solution, but can you acknowledge your problem first?"

    This guy is good...

     "When you fully understand your identity in God, you will sleep."

    He talks of watching his three year old sleep, and being envious. "I wish I could sleep like a three year old because my parents have everything in control. Jesus, I want to sleep like a three year old, with a dinosaur on my head and my leg off of the bed."

                           SCENE.

Memorable Remote Teaching Moments

 

           Nominating an Outstanding Student in any year is tough, but infinitely more difficult online. As Performing Arts, we have to first go through the kids we all know. You can't be outstanding unless you're enrolled in two of the three departments. We teachers also have to be in possession of a functioning brain that can hold more than one name at a time, which is a requirement that is still up for debate. So we named the obvious kids, and then for some reason decided to keep looking. Our outstanding freshman almost didn't get nominated because I had been saying his name wrong. Devan nominated him based on his skill in band and his kindness, and asked if we had the kid. I said no, and then immediately realized if you spelled his name the way Devan was saying it, it looked like his screen. I had to go back to my roster and reverse my original "Nope, don't know him" to "Oh ya, he's awesome". Communication breakdowns dictated that he had no idea he was our Outstanding Freshman, and he did not get an email about the online google meet ceremony. So I had to tell him in class and send him the link. While I was at it, I explained that he almost didn't get nominated because I've been saying his name wrong. I pointed out that he was allowing me to say it wrong,  in fact, I record class so I can prove he said "Yes ma'am" when I asked how to pronounce it, so really, this is all his fault. 

         The hybrid was a shit show, let's just say it. I'd have three or four kids in person and 22 online, and the ten regularly engaged online kids would show up early to chat with the in person kids, also logged into google meet for class but sitting six feet apart in the room. In one session I had four kids in person, and at least all four were willing to do the scene work. We spent most of the session in the theatre. I even gave them a tour and told them to take anything they wanted out of the costume closet. It was a glorious day, they had fun and I got to dig out years of Whatever Was Going On in that closet. There were props everywhere as well. One girl found four pair of jeans---right? WHY are there jeans in the costume closet? Anyway, they fit and she was delighted. Another managed to ferret out every weird prop being stored: skulls, chains,a fake spider, a goblet---can you guess which genre this kid identifies with? They were also beyond joyful, and managed to locate an old Canon camera as well as a big camcorder from the 1990's. I told them they couldn't have those, too valuable and vintage, and they shrugged and kept digging. They left school that day with a stuffed backpack and an additional plastic bag of treasures.  I wondered what their parents thought when they arrived home. They ended up being on quarantine for their final scene, so their group had three in person on stage and one online for The Three Little Pigs, and they used the props from school for their scene in their bedroom. The ones in person built their set on stage, taking time to shop the props loft. They couldn't be heard in the meet, no matter how well they projected, due to the masks and the fact that they were performing on stage in a crappy google meet, but I did not care, and neither did they. I honestly cried a little.

       The kids who were online for am class would gather early in the meet and chat each other up. We followed one girl's saga of wanting to talk to the boy next door (literally, he lived next door, it was ADORKABLE) but she was too shy. We helped her construct some non creepy intro lines, most of them regarding his puppy. By day 14 of the 20 day session, she had managed to say hello to him, get his name and have a conversation. She found out he only spoke Spanish, which delighted her to no end, and he called her pretty. What a rare opportunity to get to be part of a student's life like that.

     In the same session, I had a kid who always logged into class from his back porch. During the fall session, which was Nov/Dec, this was a pretty cold choice. He said there were too many people in the house and he couldn't hear. By the spring session, we had adjusted to him in the chat, because it wasn't so much quiet outside, either. I would have to say his name at least three times to get him to realize I was talking to him. The whole class would get involved. He made sure everyone had his discord information, and always participated to the best of his ability. For his Favorite Actor presentation, he chose someone named "Canoe Reeves".  Everybody tried to correct him, and he spelled it three different ways in his slide show: "Canoe", "Keanu", "Kanoe". We laughed with him, and he never did get it. It's fine. Let his favorite actor be "Canoe Reeves because he does a lot for other people and respects women and he's John Wick and played Ted and I think he's cool."

      Struggling in the fall when we were 100% remote, I panicked and decided they had to make sock puppets and perform The Odd Couple. It combines memorization, reading a play, and building a prop: take that state standards. They also had to worry about camera angles, so bonus points. I got The Best Sock Puppets from these kids. One kid gave his Oscar his 'fro, and his was too tall to get out of the shot, so it was a sock puppet and the top of his own afro. Another built a cop hat out of paper for Murray. Yet another built a tie for Felix and used a Sharpee to give Oscar a five o'clock shadow. A few did the poker scene and since they only have two hands, used their stuffed animals or siblings. I recorded them all, and in the darker days of February, I would go back and watch them. 

        These are just a few. Now that I'm through it all, I can look back and choose a few Moments That Didn't Suck (aside from the obvious limited success of two live/hybrid/livestreamed cabarets, which were not class based. Those were extra curricular, and I expected those kids to shine). These are kids who were Freshmen through Senior, some enrolled in a theatre class involuntarily in the first place, then forced into remote in the second place. Without any prompting, they lived the mantra: "Never give up, never surrender."

         We all made it.

         To quote Clark Griswold "...Halleluiah, Holy shit, where's the Tylenol?"

Blog Titles; No Blog Necessary

     A fun collection of what I should  rename  my blogs. I realized I didn't actually need to write them, they just need good titles. I missed my calling, I coulda written headlines.

That Time I Refused To Get In The Ambulance After Wrecking My Motorcycle

My Cats Joined The Mafia

Do Not Hit Your Sister With The Rubber Alligator

The Money Goes In The Hamburger, Not The Air Vent

I Wore White To The Steve Martin Concert; He Did Not Ask Me To Marry Him

The Time I Drove A Drunk Mime Home But He Couldn't Tell Me Where He Lived

I Used To Be Cool

That Time I Ran Through DIA Clutching My Shoes To My Chest And Asking Every Employee "Where Do You Keep The Children?"

Spiderman Defeated By Gravity And The Floor (Stolen from either Tina Fey or Robert Carlock): A Metaphor For Remote Teaching Theatre (it should be noted that the tag line of the theme song should  go here too, "They're alive, Dammit!")

It Takes Two Willing Participants For Education To Be Successful

So It Turns Out Hitler Was A Dick

Christmas Trees Do Not Grow At Christmas

That Time We Had To Take A Dead Labrador Out The Front Door In A Tarp In Broad Daylight And Nobody Called The Police

Remote Teacher Found Dead Days Later; Nobody Noticed, Police Called By Cats

Theatre Online Isn't Theatre, It's History and Literature And Talking About The Light Design In Hamilton (And Making A Sock Puppet Odd Couple)

Memory 3 He Had It Comin'

 

     Yes, there is a deliberate "Lost Memory" theme here. I wiped out most of my blogs in 2019, and lost a few that I particularly enjoyed, like the time I rode the new principal into the gym on the back of my motorcycle. I can't find that one, but frankly, that story's been told. Memories are great I just don't need to repeat the same ones. Time to really dig for stuff. It is not all going to be funny, or interesting, but it's honest and authentic. 

    When I was still part time theatre/part time language arts, there was a full time theatre teacher, and a lang arts teacher who was our TD. So in total there were five adults on the musical for a few years. There had not been a teacher performance at a cabaret thus far, and the TD and I decided there should be. If we could rope the other three into it, we could Do A Thing and It Would Be Fun. We immediately went to Breakfast Club, as our tribe is wont to do, but didn't want to do Breakfast Club. So, we were ruminating ideas, and I toddled across the hall to the TD's room and her class was watching Chicago. We were "meeting" to talk about a cabaret idea that all five of us could do without just rehashing The Breakfast Club. We were determined that it be all of us or none of us.

     I have no idea what our ideas were, but none of them were sticking. We sat in her room staring at the floor and thinking with the movie playing, and "Cell Block Tango" came on. I looked at the screen and said "Why can't we do that?"

     This person and I are work wives, and we fire off of each other frighteningly well. We can both recite the movie Real Genius from memory, and last year I received a tote bag in the mail from an unknown address that has " The Wanda Trussler School of Beauty" emblazoned on it. I used it to schlep my Moira Rose costume to my new building for our first cabaret. "Unknown" is funny. I knew who it was. My sister is the only other person I know who can quote that movie.

     So I had barely finished "...that?" when she looked up at me and knew exactly what I meant.

     Why can't we "Breakfast Club", Chicago?

     The boys were on board, so the costuming and choreography began. S and I came up to my house to work once or twice, and I squirted an anarchy symbol on a black tank top with dish soap, bleaching it into the fabric for all eternity. We kept the choreo to the minimum due to my general lack of skill, and each of us wrote our own reason for being in detention, and rehearsed it to the song. I have no memory of each of our tag words that replaced "Pop", "Cicero", etc, but I do remember that I was the innocent one. We decided that since I was the most obvious "criminal" in the group ( punk rock kid) that I should actually be innocent. I also remember that S did the sprinkler dance with a side pony tail, and I can't watch Napoleon Dynamite without seeing her. The guys were variations of jocks/marching band/letter sweaters, pretty goody goody, and she was a nerd. Not stereotypes, we just returned to our previous incarnations, which were...stereotypes. It's high school, whatreyagonna do? Of the five of us, I was the only hooligan. They had all been excellent students.

     Until the night that we performed, the kids had never seen us outside of our usual "performance" duties: J conducting choir, D heading marching band, JK doing curtain speeches, S on a ladder--according to student lore, she fell off of a 12' ladder once and simply "bounced"-- and me waving my arms and doing whatever it is that I do.

     I managed to execute the minimal choreo in my Dr.Martens, and I only remember the looks on the kids' faces. Of course it helped that we had talent, but they didn't care. This memory does not make me feel warm and fuzzy like the Beasties, or my bike in the gym.  It was a start to something, I think, that was all. We did not make a tradition of doing every cabaret for the 15 years I was there, by any stretch, but when S was a part of the ones we did do (we sang "Suddenly Stephanie" instead of "Suddenly Seymour" to her), they were infinitely more fun. As a techie, she relished any opportunity to perform and was quite good at it. To this day my husband says "Stephanie is so funny." She and I performed Parallel Lives as a fundraiser to send kids to NYC, and she couldn't even go on the trip; she was pregnant. Was that the first time? I feel like she was always pregnant.  We changed the photos on our ID badges to Lenny and Carl from The Simpsons. She made kids read the opening of Beowulf in the original Old English. I can still text her and say "My mother does the same thing with my underwear," and she will reply "Your mother puts license plates in your underwear? How do you sit?"

   I did not see this turn coming, this is clearly a love letter.

   It makes me miss that person,  who I've clearly named here and with whom I am still in touch, but it's different. We don't work together, we haven't for years. She has young kids, mine are adults. We live an hour away from one another. Yet we exchange Schitt's Creek memes, and occasional photos of her ever growing children. There are threats to get drinks, but there are soccer practices, then Covid, then soccer practice, then family vacations, then ceramics classes...

   "I never had friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?" ---Stephen King.

   Scene.