Multitasking

New Years Day I was returning to New York on the train with 3 other friends from the retreat. 5 minutes before we were pulling into the train station where we had to catch our connecting train, I got a call from my best friend and roommate who was stranded in an airport in Ecuador and needed me to call American Airlines and straighten it out for him. Knowing that he is on a cell phone and paying $2 a minute for this call I frantically search for pen and paper to write down his confirmation number. My friends are handing me pens, and of course the first two don't work. Finally, I have a pencil and a tiny post-it note that already is full of writing. I copy his info in the only unused corner of this ragged, sorry excuse for a note paper, using my damp, cupped hand as a writing surface, and then hang up to call AA.

As I get a snippy AA woman on the phone the train pulls into the station. One of my friends grabs my luggage while another leads me out the door as I try to explain to this woman that my roommate is stranded in an airport and the American Airlines people aren't rebooking him until tomorrow. She wants to know why they won't let him on the plane, because according to her computer, the plane is at the airport, not scheduled to depart for 35 more minutes. Of course I don't have this information. Meanwhile I have walked over an 8 foot metal scaffolding structure that bridges the sizable gap between train and platform. I see a local news crew on the platform, about 10 feet away from me, doing a story. Meanwhile, in my ear, the American Airlines agent is acting very put out by my request, telling me she needs to know why they won't let my roommate on the plane, before she will even attempt to find another flight. So I hang up and wait for him to call me back with more info. He calls back immediately, and I ask him why he can't get onto the plane as it won't depart for another half-hour. As he begins his answer, the train pulls away.

I was about 7 feet away from the metal scaffolding type bridge that I had just crossed to get to the platform, and the news crew was about 15 feet away but on the other side of it. As the train pulls away this two-ton metal structure is ripped off the platform by the departing train, flipped up in the air and lands on the track behind the train, only a few feet from me. The news crew immediately swings their camera around and gets a good shot of the structure, now lying on it's side, and then proceeds to interview, on camera, my three friends. Back in my ear, my roommate is trying to tell me that the gate agents in Ecuador closed the flight, stating that he should have arrived 2 hours prior, and they are not letting anyone on. He gets cut off. I redial American Airlines as my friends are now leading me to another platform to catch the connecting train that has now been rerouted to another track. When the second AA agent gets on the phone, my story has now become, "My son is stranded in an airport in South America and he needs to get back to the US today to take his medicine!" This agent was actually helpful. As she is searching for another way to get him back, he rings back on call waiting from Ecuador just as my connecting train pulls into the station. I am trying to merge the calls as my friends lead me onto our train and find us a seat. I let them stow my bags as I have now successfully merged the two phone calls and am introducing the two people on the phone to each other: "Stranded Son, this is Henrietta, Helpful Agent. Henrietta, Helpful Agent, this is Stranded Son." As I am trying to come up with creative ways to repatriate my medicinally deprived son the train leaves the station with the news crew still visible from the window of the train. One of my traveling companions indicates that I need to get my ticket out. I reach into my wallet, my tiny cell phone wedged impossibly between my cheek and left shoulder, retrieve my ticket, hand it to my friend who then hands it to the conductor. (Yeah, I was THAT guy!).

Finally all the tasks of transferring trains and the tasks of dealing with my stranded friend come to an end at about the same time. I hang up the phone, thank my traveling companions seated next to me, and ask them about the news crew. I was told there had been a fire at the train station the day before and the news crew was there interviewing passengers to see if people felt safe with this mode of travel, when the 2-ton metal scaffolding was ripped off it's mooring, and careened past my fragile head. Nice.