Everybody has at least one airport nightmare story. This is mine.
Remember the baggage system? It was supposed to be the seventh wonder of the world, but it turned into a big old suitcase-chomping pain in the neck for the folks who were trying valiantly to open Denver International Airport in 1995.
The system finally was scrapped, but not before its presence changed my airport habits forever.
The story you are about to read has nothing to do with the current state of affairs at the airport. In fact, one of these weeks I’ll write about the many things I like about DIA. Not today.
One day in summer 1995, my two little kids and I drove my mom to the new airport to catch a flight to see my sister.
I parked on Level 3 West. Big mistake.
Hitting the trail
I decided not to bother with the stroller. At 3, Mark liked to walk, and 4-month-old Sara was very happy in the baby sling. Second mistake.
I was a new mom and maybe not reading the papers very carefully. So I did not know that part of Level 3 West had been taken over by the emergency backup baggage system, blocking access to all the Level 3 elevators in that part of the parking garage.
I just followed the signs that said THIS WAY TO THE TERMINAL, not knowing that they had failed to put signs on the return leg that said THIS WAY BACK TO YOUR CAR.
Mark was a typical 3-year-old transportation freak, so we made an afternoon of it, back in the days when you could walk people all the way out to the gate, ride the train and the escalators, eat some ice cream, watch the ground crews work and the big jets taxi in and out, wave goodbye to Gramma and check out the self-flushing toilets.
The return trip
Then we headed back to the car.
We got on the elevator, and Mark pushed the “3” button. The elevator went to the second floor.
We got out of the elevator, looked around, got back in the elevator. Mark pushed the “3” button. The elevator went to the fourth floor.
We got out and walked to another elevator. Lather, rinse, repeat. None of the elevators wanted to stop on the third floor.
We got out of the third or fourth or fifth elevator and found a nice DIA volunteer in a white hat. About 20 minutes had passed by this point. He directed us to one of the elevators we had already used.
“That doesn’t work,” I said.
“Then I don’t know,” he said.
“Thanks for your time,” I said and walked away, infant in a sling beginning to get heavy, small boy’s hand in my increasingly sweaty palm.
“Mommy, are we lost?” Mark asked.
“No, honey, I know exactly where we are,” I said.
“Oh good,” Mark said. He was such an easy kid, very serious and articulate. Where other 3-year-olds might ask “Where car go?,” Mark was more likely to say, “It seems to be missing.”
“Let’s take another elevator ride, OK? Push the button.” I said in that aren’t-we-having-
FUN tone of voice.
“I don’t want to push the button anymore,” Mark said. Uh-oh.
We went to Level 4, exited to the garage and started walking toward daylight on the south side. I knew the car was parked along that wall and I saw stairs.
We went down the stairs to Level 3.
There was a big plywood wall blocking the stairs.
I can’t remember whether I swore out loud or just to myself.
We looked at the plywood.
“Mommy?” Mark asked in a tiny voice. “Do you know where our car is?”
I was seeing the headlines: “Mom, tots starve in DIA garage,” with a sidebar column by Gene Amole saying “I told you so.” I was no longer able to pretend this was fun.
I looked over the railing of the stairs at the outside of the garage and tried not to cry. I could see the hood of my car about 25 feet from where we were. For the longest time my sole memory of that day was panic mixed with anger and sheer maternal will: As God is my witness, I am not going to die with my children in this bleeping parking garage.
But here’s what really happened: Way at the other end of the garage I could see another set of stairs. Deliverance!
“You see those other stairs, way down there? That’s where we need to go,” I told Mark.
“That’s a long way,” he said.
“We have to be brave,” I said, and we started walking.
It was only then that he started to whine, and the baby woke up hot and cranky, and my feet were officially killing me. Down to the second level, and then
allllll the way to the far stairs, the baby out of the sling and howling now, Mark very vocal about how thirsty he was and how much he wanted to go home, and up to the third level, the wide-open unobstructed door to the third level, thank you dear God for small favors, and allllll the way back to my beautiful Subaru.
When I asked Mark last night – so enormous now at 14 – he didn’t remember getting lost in the airport parking garage, so it didn’t scar him for life.
But it scarred me. I had sworn that I would drive to Colorado Springs – or China – before I used that freaking airport again.
Lisa Everitt is a writer and editor who lives in Arvada and uses DIA all the time.
