6:50 am 

Standing in a help-desk line at JFK airport seems as good a moment as any to analyze the catastrophe of my life. Everyone in this line is embarrassed to be here, and I’m no exception. We’re misfits, absent-minded millennials and oldsters who can’t get technology to work, and we have formed an instant community as airport rejects. 

Before joining this exclusive club, I had to share my reason for being here. 

“What do you need help with?” the guard asked. 

“So, I’ve booked a trip and just found out my passport recently expired. But I have other forms of ID, so I’m hoping I can prove my identity and citizenship and get on this flight.”

“Why did you let your passport expire, ma’am?” the guard asks skeptically. 

WHY…  I had gotten a new, demanding job and been traveling domestically. Why I hadn’t thought to gaze at my passport weeks before though was a mystery. But when I had called the airport the night before, I was told if I’d bring my birth certificate and ID that I could still fly because my passport was within a year of its expiration date. So, I persisted in pleading my case. 

7:22 am 

Once on the line, I find myself in front of a middle-aged couple going to Colorado. They were planning to do some skiing, if the snow was good, and visiting their nieces and nephews. As we inch forward, the wife keeps leaving her luggage four feet behind her in line.   

“Where is my mind today? So sorry,” she says in a wispy voice. She leans back and pulls the purple suitcase forward. We turn a bend, and her luggage is left behind again, this time with her hat. By the third time, a man adjacent to her says, “This is ridiculous. Who just lets luggage float in a line?”  

7:43 am 

Behind me is the original power couple, circa 1994. They are planning on flying to St. Lucia and have digital personal assistants and printed luggage tags. They use corporate lingo with each other as terms of endearment. I imagine them efficiently raising families, planting trees, and living in a big house. 

They are in triage mode: while waiting in line, they are both on hold with customer service agents, each of them calling for the same reason, trying their luck at who can solve their problem faster. 

“Sir, sir. Can you stay with me? I want to rebook that same flight to today at 11 am minus the layover,” the wife says. She’s blonde with thick tortoise shell glasses and a long cashmere sweater. They certainly didn’t make their money in fashion or crypto. Both are wearing Levi jeans, drinking Dunkin’ Donut coffee and, it is clear, work hard, all the time. Even on vacation. 

After the third customer service agent directs them back to the kiosk, her husband snaps. “I’ve had it, Jane. This is useless. These people are incompetent. FUCK.” 

“Rick, I hear you. I see you. We are problem solvers; we can do this,” she coaches. 

“Oh, I want to kill you! Why are you thanking the customer service agents? They aren’t helping! Nobody here cares about us catching our flights.” 

“I hate you when you’re like this,” she says, lowering her eyeglasses to the bridge of her nose. 

Their corporate triangle of trust is breaking down. In twenty minutes, their impressive teamwork has turned into marriage trouble. 

 8:00 am 

Tracking parallel to me on the line is a couple in their seventies. Their daughter Jenny (a lawyer, mom of two) has bought them a trip to Aruba. The wife had been complaining about the cold, and this was a New Year’s gift. The two have spent so many years of their life intertwined that they had both entered the other’s birthday by accident upon check-in. When it didn’t match their ID and passport, they were rejected at security. 

“I know you want to be younger, George, but you need to be honest at the airport and put in your correct birthday.”

“Marjorie, I know my birthday for Christ’s sake. But the bot put in your birthday. These kiosks are robots. I don’t trust them”

“Just call Jenny, and she’ll fix it.” 

They make several calls to Jenny, who I find myself empathizing with since I too am a daughter and caretaker who provides regular IT support. 

“The key word is artificial. These bots are not like the human brain. It’s all AI,” he says.

“I want to go home. We’re not going to make it. Let’s just go home,” the wife grumbles. 

She is several inches shorter than her husband and seems to be shrinking by the minute. She folds her scarf into her jacket like it was origami. 

“You’re just being negative,” he says. “We’ll make it. I think it’ll work out.”

This is what a marriage is, I thought. One person thinking the universe will end and the other tracking towards optimism. 

I find myself envying this elderly couple. Together, they have borne witness to each other’s lives. From milestones to minutiae, a collected history. 

8:30 am 

I hear the sound of bangles clinking. A woman further back on the line is waving to an attendant and asking to be seen sooner. “Hi, my flight is at 9 am. I can’t miss it. It’s urgent.” 

We continue to move at a glacial pace. The woman is headed to Costa Rica with a girlfriend. All she needs is a guitar and I’d have mistaken her for Sheryl Crow. She has a ripped red t-shirt that says, “Unedited Cut,” black cargo pants, a Bon Jovi cap and a very large rolling black duffel bag. 

“My friend is already at the gate, and I need to meet her there! This is so nerve-wracking. Doesn’t anybody care?” she yells into space. 

Her bangles shake again as she waves at the attendant nervously. 

“I see you. Please wait your turn.” 

A few more minutes count down and she gets up the nerve to ask people in front of her if she could take their place in the line. This is risky, I think. 

Her first try is a woman traveling alone in her twenties. 

“Women helping women, you know? Help a sister out.” 

“No, sorry. I’m staying where I am. I’m going to meet my boyfriend.”

Her second try is a black mother and daughter.  “So, my flight is leaving very soon. If your flight is later, would you be willing…? God bless you. Good things will come your way if you do me this kindness.”

“Ain’t no God in this line. Why are you bringing my God into this? Nothing holy about the help-desk line.” 

Preach, I think. We’re all going to hell if we’re in this line. Especially me attempting to travel to another country with an expired passport. 

“Well, I just think it’s important to step outside of ourselves and do each other a kindness”

“Yeah, no.”  

Her final try is a short Nepalese couple. They speak very little English and are going back home to see their parents. Their cousin was with them to help translate. The man asks the wife and after a moment, she caves. “Ok, you go.” 

8:45 am

By now my friend is already at the gate, and I know I’ll miss the flight. Even if I could get past security. 

She was a new, fast friend. Here from London on a work visa, working at JPMorgan. Her British accent had seduced me into agreeing to a trip to Turks and Caicos. Now, I realize that I had been too spontaneous. 

9:10 am 

“You can’t travel with an expired passport. That’s a no go.” 

“I know but I have my birth certificate here and social security card. Plus, my driver’s license. I called the airport yesterday and they said it would be okay.”

“Well, that was the old policy, you were misinformed.”

 “Please?”

“I’m sorry, but none of that is a legitimate passport.” 

“But see the baby feet?” I present her with a ripped page from my Mt. Sinai hospital record with a stamp of my feet to prove I was a New York city kid. Born in the USA. 

“That’s real cute. And I’d keep that. But it’s still not a passport.” 

“Call a passport expediter and you can get on a plane in 2-3 days,” someone advises.

By then the trip would be over, and my pride wounded. The good news was that the lovely Nepalese couple caught their flight.  The bad news was that my British friend – whom I had hoped to enjoy years of company with exploring exotic locations and, one day, sharing a flat together in London – had become paranoid that I had forgotten to renew my passport to spite her and sabotage her vacation. 

I decide to take a yellow taxi home, instead of an Uber, in honor of my roots. Leaning against the window, I draw hearts over the frosted windowpane. 

“Going home?” the taxi driver says. 

“Yes, short trip. Too short” I say. 

“Sad, no? Take a hot shower, some coffee. It’ll be better tomorrow.” 

And just like that at a moment of despair came practical advice.  It’s a strange thing about New York. Just when I’m truly fed up and think I’ve had enough with the high prices, bars that only serve tapas, terrible dates and the transitory way people you love come and go, the city comes back and like an octopus kicking up a rock from the ocean floor offers me something real to hold onto. 

***

Lily Lopate is a Brooklyn-based writer and editor. Her essay, “A Relationship of Words” was published in the anthology Every Father’s Daughter (McPherson & Co). Her work has also appeared in People Magazine, Food & Wine, The Millions, NYC Religions, Columbia News Service, Honeysuckle Magazine and more. She is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College and Columbia Journalism School. She currently works at a creative agency overseeing digital and branded content