G helped a woman on our flight hoist her luggage into the overhead bin. Then, on the way out, that same woman trippped and fell flat on her face on the jetway at the cabin door. The man ahead of us rushed to her aid.
Someone I know casually from Mansfield was on our flight.
She said, “Kath! What are you doing in Detroit?”
(I could have asked her the same thing.)
“I came for dinner,” I said.
Which was true.
We were staying over at the Westin in the Detroit airport and flying to PDX on an early flight the next day.
The Westin has a seven story ceiling sculpture and glass elevators that float up and down the walls and a living wall of plants. G got a beer at the bar, I got two fingers of Grand Marnier in a snifter. We talked about how nice it was to be getting away.
G has been aggro about work.
Where Elmira is a chill, laid-back little regional airport,
Detroit is a Delta hub so it bustles. There are long TSA lines, moving sidewalks, and announcements wanting Joseph Delgado to please return to Gate 30.
The unmistakable voice of Siri constantly warns us to never leave our luggage unattended, and never take candy or cocaine from strangers.
Twenty dollars will get you a water, carob coated cashews, and a pre-made turkey sandwich at Plum Market.
We had to re-enter the terminal from a new direction in the morning and when we did, I encountered this:
“Well,”I thought. “They’re finally calling this airport what it is.”
To enter the Parallel Reality Experience you scan your boarding pass and then a massive blue board hanging from the ceiling greets you by name and gives you your updated flight and gate numbers and directions for how to get there and how long it will take.
There might be other blue boards along the way, encouraging you. I was unclear about that.
Nobody but you can see your board. If there are twenty people looking up at the board, they only see a picture of an airplane, but you see: Welcome Kathleen! Here is your information!
I don’t need help negotiating DTW because I’ve been there many times, and I have all that info on my phone anyway, but if I were in a foreign country and didn’t speak the language I can see how this service would be amazingly helpful.
But it isn’t a parallel reality as much as an augmented one. You are in the same airport situation, only with customized guidance.
A true parallel reality would allow you to navigate the airport while reading the new Elon Musk biography and having a pedicure. Two realities could be lived side-by-side.
It would be like the movie Multiplictity where the Michael Keaton character clones himself so he can get more stuff done.
But I do think when an airport installs a Parallel Reality feature it does mean it’s finally ready to admit that airports are separate realities— liminal, time-space portals that we need to have special skills to navigate. Skills not everyone has.
To navigate a busy airport, you need to be present in your body, focused in your mind, and calm in your psychology. If you can pull that off, you will definitely enter a parallel reality, and you won’t even need to scan your boarding pass.
Here are some pics of us in our parallel reality at the Westin:
Kath and G
Inspiration Location 