I took an Uber to LaGuardia Airport from the city. As usual, I go early in the morning for early flights, I was coming home.
A lady named Miguelina picked me up. She seemed nice, she didn’t speak much English, so we didn’t speak.
As we approached the area of the airport, I didn’t recognize it. It wasn’t the usual way. It was early Monday morning, about 6 am, so there was no traffic to avoid, so she should have taken the usual route.
As I looked out and saw the airport in the distance, I was wondering, “Where are we going? Did I punch in Kennedy Airport by mistake? Are we going there?” I asked her and she said she didn’t speak English. I asked her in Spanish, if we were going to LaGuardia and she sort of ignored me.
We finally arrived, but it was at a place I had never seen before. I had just seen the Seinfeld “The Pledge Drive” episode where his grandmother is lost in a desolate area, looking for Chemical Bank. That’s what this was like. We were sort of underground somewhere — under the airport!
She told me to get out, in that rude way non-English speakers think they are speaking English politely. I said, “Wait, there is nothing here!” The airport is usually very well lit, you know, there are always cars coming and going and there is always plenty of travelers and staff around. This was bare. The lights were very dim, there was no other car or other person. She said this was my stop.
I told her we have to go to “departures” but she would not move. She looked at her phone, which meant nothing. Finally a security guard arrived and he yelled for us to move. She refused! The guard said we were on level 1, and get this, the baggage level and arrivals was up a flight to level 2 and the departures were level 3, we needed to go to 3. She didn’t care, she just sat there.
I asked the guard if I could just get in some way down in that dungeon area and climb stairs or something and he showed me a back escalator and I took that up two flights to the regular entrance area. I’m still not sure what that was or why we were there. Maybe it’s a loading dock area.
Scary trip. Scary driver. First time in my life I did not tip. The driver deserved nothing.
Originally published at tomversation.com on November 28, 2023.
