In the spring of 2007 I was working at the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport for AirTran Airways. I was working at gate 10 of the Humphrey Terminal. The flight I was working was a non-stop from Minneapolis to Orlando, Florida. The flight was going to be delayed a couple of hours because of severe weather in the Twin Cities.
My co-worker on the flight was Christine Edwards. A great co-worker and someone who always was able to find something to laugh about on a very tough day at work. We knew that we were not going to have an aircraft for at least two hours from the time we arrived at the gate, so we did some mild brainstorming as to how we were going to keep these people and their excited children entertained. More accurately, how were we going to keep each other entertained.
I had an idea which was only humorous only in my head. We had a large expanse of carpeted area and I thought about these 30 or so kids playing "Red Light, Green Light". But I quickly envisioned a 13-year old boy just obliterating the 6-year old girl who stopped short in front of him on the way to the front wall. I also saw in my mind's eye a kid who looked like Goldberg from the first "Mighty Ducks" film just pancaking an unsuspecting Urkel-looking kid after not being able to stop his momentum as he ran toward the front wall.
But Christine came up with the solution.
Simon Says.
It was a stroke of genius. Truly, a stroke of genius.
So I got on the p.a. and told the passengers in the gate area that we would be playing Simon Says in the large carpeted area. If they were okay with their kids playing, go ahead and send them over to us and the game would begin.
I've always enjoyed Simon Says, but as an adult you don't get to play it very often. I recalled the Saturday afternoons when I was a teen watching The Superstars on ABC. They had a segment on the show which involved a guy who did a great job of playing the game with these athletes.
I looked in front of me and there were probably 20-22 kids, ranging from the ages of 6-15. I had a hard time starting from scratch, but quickly got into the flow of things, keeping things very simple for quite a while as to not discourage kids from playing and keeping them entertained as much as possible.
I weeded through the kids until I got down to the last three, all aged in their early teens. They were tough and I knew that I would need to be sharp in order to dispatch them quickly and start another game shortly thereafter.
I got down to the final two and I duped the younger boy and raised the hand of the winner. I announced that we were going to play again, knowing that our inbound aircraft was still en route.
Everyone who played the first game came back for the second and the second game didn't last ask ing as the first, although it was just as difficult to dispatch the last few as it had been in game one.
I raised the hand of the game two winner just as Christine yelled my name and said that our aircraft was "on the ground". There was a round of applause when she made the announcement and I stepped over to the microphone and told all of the kids "thank you" for playing and asked their parents to "see if Northwest will do that for ya". There was much laughter after the comment.
It was one of the most uncommon things I have done in my 15+ years in the industry, but I will always remember it. One amazing fact is that the photo, which can be seen on my Facebook page, was taken by a frequent flyer who gave me a copy. She just happened to be on that same flight that day. It further reminds me of my great experience.
There are many days in my job which are better left unmentioned after they are over. But every once in a while a gem shows up. Just enough to make one look forward to tomorrow.
I'm just sayin'.
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