American eavesdropper

I spent a lot of time listening to other people on my flight to Barbados.  And I found it fascinating.

It's been 14 years since I was last in America.  Fourteen years since I stood outside LAX smoking a cigarette laughing with relief that I had managed to get away from that place without getting my head kicked in.  That's a story for another day.

Not that this is why I didn't go back.  Life just took another turn.  And I suppose after visiting four times in six years I felt I'd see other parts of the world.  Unlike South America, Africa and Australasia, work hasn't required me to go.

So here I am in-situ in America.  On my own with nobody to talk to and sitting in among a people who love to do exactly that, and loudly.

It didn't take long to remember that there are subtle differences between Americans and any other Western culture.  Take the bar I was sat at in LAX the morning of my flight to Miami.  It was 6am and I was having an early morning beverage.

 
A guy sat down to the left of me and studied the menu.  He has short very blond hair, a strange nose and late twenties.  He called a waiter over and asked "are the biscuits and gravy good?"  The waiter pulled a face.  "Good answer" the guy said and ordered an American breakfast with extra bacon instead.

Soon after an older gentleman sat down and the first guy passed on the advice of the waiter.  The older man was in denim, with longish dark hair and a creased, tanned face.  He ordered the American breakfast as well.  He didn't say anything but when it arrived he probably regretted not ordering extra bacon.

The two picked up a conversation in that effortless way Americans do.  They talked rapidly, clearly, at length and predominantly about themselves.  They asked each other very few questions.  Just took it in turns to talk.  And at the end they went their separate ways.

In that time I learned that the older gentleman had been to every state in America and while well traveled the younger man had never left the country.  That the guy who ordered extra bacon was a 3D printer technician who would drive anywhere up to 16 hours to reach a client.  Anything over that he would fly.  And that after being punched badly in a fight he had trouble with his ear.  A problem that was sometimes exacerbated by flying. 

I found it strange that the older guy let this comment pass without a response.

Watching them also reminded me Americans eat in an almost childlike way.  Both used their knifes to chop up their food in advance of eating it.  Making it easy for them to just use a fork to scoop up their breakfast.  I only do that when I'm eating spaghetti.

On board the flight to Miami I sat behind a thin woman with dark hair and bad skin.  Not exactly behind.  She was one to the left of me.   She was one row behind Business Class so had a screen on the wall in front of her that she perched her iPhone 8.  I noticed she was watching episodes of the Kardashians. 

She was having a conversation with the guy sat next to her but he soon went to sleep.  I zoned out and it was only an hour or so later that I noticed the woman again because through the gap in the seat I could clearly see her flicking through the photos on her phone and recognised a boat journey she must have taken recently on the Thames.  Starved of anything interesting to look at or think about I was already looking on with interest when she started zooming in on pictures of herself in bikinis.

As ways to pass the time on board a flight this was one of the more memorable but after five minutes of so she went back to watching the Kardashians and I soon lost interest again.

We landed in Miami and while waiting for the doors to open she struck up a conversation again with her neighbour.  She told him how London was "a lot of fun" for a week and she got loads of great "content" but then got frustrated by the fact "it got dark at 3.30pm".  How she'd gone to Los Angeles to visit and decided to stay for good "I called my flatmate and paid them to send all my stuff".  That she was "super excited" about her upcoming trip to the Bahamas.  "I can't believe it's only three hours away and I've never been".  And that Japan was majorly on her to-do list because of this.  I liked her loads more when she said that. 

What do prisoners think about all day?

My god, has anyone in the history of humanity been more miserable before going to the Caribbean for six weeks?

I remember listening to Alastair Cook shortly after he'd arrived in Bangladesh ahead of England's two month tour of the country (and India) in 2016.  He had left the bedside of his wife just a couple of days after she had given birth.  I can't find the exact quote but he said something along the lines that "I left the house feeling like the worst person on earth and it was a difficult drive down the motorway.  But then when you meet the lads at the airport you start getting excited about the challenge ahead."

I might have 12,472 Test runs less than him but those words came back to me as I sat in a cab on the way to Auckland airport with my pregnant wife and soon-to-be two year old son disappearing out of view.

I wish I had had some team mates to help make me excited.  My fear of flying reduced markedly when I was zipping around Europe and a sense of normality certainly helps.  There's not much more normal than spending time with work mates.  Instead I faced nearly 48 hours of transit across three countries and one date line completely alone.

Two days is a long time to spend on your own.  For sure there are distractions.  Plane taking off, plane coming down, check in, departures, arrivals, passport control, passenger flight cards, clouds out the window, Seinfeld on the iPad, a glass of wine here, a tablet of valium there.  But in and around that there is a lot of time spent thinking about life.

I went through it all on the longest January 10th I will ever experience.  Up early to look after my son, to the park in the morning, the beach in the afternoon, then an early dinner and a cab to the airport.  A 11pm take off, a 12 hour flight, land at LAX and there's still eleven hours of January 10th to go.  Two of which I spent in a queue just trying to leave the airport.

January 11th wasn't much better.  Alarm at 4.30am (which was in fact 1.30am for my NZ body clock) and a four and a half hour flight before I should have even been awake.  Another three hours in Miami (where I decided I'd had enough air conditioned air) before jumping on my third flight another three hours to go until my destination.

There were so many grim aspects.  The leaving, the stress of flying, the lack of comfortable sleep, the early start, the horrible food, the crap conversations going on around me, the impact on my nervous system and that last interminable hour on board flight AA2393.

I arrived after my colleagues had gone to bed.  The next day boy did I chew their ears off.  Couldn't shut up.

Life impact - an intro

Today I went to the park with my wife and son to celebrate the birthday I will miss in a couple of weeks.  It's Franklin's 2nd birthday on 21st Jan.  Knowing the cricket schedule for the next two years I will also miss his 3rd, possibly his 4th and who knows what I will be doing for the Ashes the year after that.  You don't need to be a parent to know this sucks. 

My wedding anniversary is the 18th Jan. 

Hmmmm.

Reminds me of the last time I toured the West Indies when I missed our anniversary and my wif'e's birthday.  She got me back.

Has it really been ten years since I last covered a West Indies tour?  That catalogue of woe was well documented.  A snapped achilles, a missed plane, being forced to cough up $1400 for a flight I'd already paid for, a cancelled Test match, a golf buggy incident only to come home to the kitchen covered in soot.

The sacrifices we make in the pursuit of a career, the mental anguish of being away from the family, the memories of a tour gone by, the angst ahead of a long journey.  All to be expanded upon.