Recently at a PTA dinner, a friend told me that her father was so worked up about flying that he was at the airport at 9 in the evening for a flight that wasn't going to leave until 1:30 a.m., a good 4 1/2 hours early! My friend also said that as soon as the flight boarding announcement was made, her father would jump up and head for the start of the line, itching to board.
Unlike him, my friend said she would sit and wait until all the passengers had boarded before taking her sweet time about boarding. "I wait for them to call my name", joked my friend.
That reminded of the time I was coming back to Cebu from a trip to Manila. It was my first time to be at the NAIA 3 airport and quite unfamiliar with the layout of the gates. I had glanced at my boarding pass earlier when it was issued to me by the lady at the counter and saw that it said "Gate 116". So off I went to Gate 116 to await my flight. I was not in the least bit concerned that I did not see Cebu on the board yet because I was 2 hours early. I whiled away the time reading a book I had bought. Although I was absorbed in the book, I had an ear out for boarding announcements and heard Iloilo, General Santos, etc. being called but no Cebu yet. I glanced at my watch to see it was still an hour and a half away. That's okay, I thought. It's still quite a long time off.
About 30 minutes before the flight, I looked up at the LED display near the boarding gate and saw that there was a Cebu flight. Ah, good, I was in the correct gate and went back to my book. At 15 minutes before my flight, I was getting a bit concerned that my flight had not been called yet. And then I heard it-- "this is the last call for passenger Kathryn Go, your flight is set to depart at Gate 119". I looked at my boarding card in horror and saw that I must have had a dyslexic moment when I read the card. I had always prided myself in the fact that I could read upside-down. At the time I looked at the boarding card, the counter person was holding it facing her so it was highly likely that what was a "9" I mistook to be a "6".
As you can imagine, I ran as fast as I could to Boarding Gate 119 and made it back to Cebu without further mishap. From that time on, I would constantly check my boarding pass for the time and boarding gate, just to be sure.
