TEMPE, Ariz. — It’s starting to become difficult to recall which day it is, let alone the correct time.

According to my sources, it’s 9:40 a.m. Pacific, and I’m stuck in Room 159 of the “Moxy” hotel in Tempe, near the Arizona State University campus.

My plan to visit two best-friends-who-count-as-family over the weekend went well, but finished with the mother of all belly-flops when my homebound flight from Sky Harbor (PHX) to Indianapolis (IND) was suddenly cancelled by The Powers that Be over at American Airlines.

Apparently, I’ve walked nose-first into an ongoing situation involving the airlines, thousands of underpaid flight attendants, various labor unions, and a smattering of vocal anti-vaccine, striking-employee protestors outside Sky Harbor itself.

As a result, American Airlines (hereafter referred to as “American” or “AA”) has cancelled thousands of flights in the past couple days due to a labor shortage. From a PR perspective, they’ve been quick to point out windy conditions near Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW), but that doesn’t really make a lot of sense as to why flights in places like Seattle, Chicago, or Washington D.C., got the axe.

The hammer also fell on my flight home to the Hoosier State, which was already promising to be arduous from its first design: arriving 4 hours early so I could finish up grading for my class, getting on the plane around 4:15 p.m. local, and winding up in Indianapolis somewhere around midnight so a friend could drive me home (in time to work at 9 a.m. the next day).

I should have known what was coming: I sat in the Dunkin’ Donuts outside Terminal 4, nursing a vanilla coffee and dipping my toe into the waters of petty schadenfreude, taking some sort of bizarre pleasure in listening to two disgruntled strangers complain about their cancelled flight. Alas, my dose of bad news would be coming, too.

I don’t believe in karma, but it still manages to come around and bite me in the ass regardless of what I think: Only an hour or two later — just minutes from my flight actually boarding — I received a similar text message of cancellation..

Lo, as Morrissey sang, “I’ve seen this happen in other people’s lives, and now it has happened in mine.“

Smiths references aside (those jokes aren’t funny anymore) this is far from the first time I’ve been here: American has stranded me to fend for myself overnight three times now:

1. An errant flight departure delay (then un-delay) caused me to miss a flight to a buddy’s bachelor party in October 2019. I got a few hours of sleep under a dress shirt in the lobby of IND before taking a red-eye morning jaunt to join the rest of the festivities (and sleep most of the day).
   
2. A month later, a flight home from a business trip in San Antonio saw me in a similar position, napping in a rigid chair in DFW after spending hours on the runway (and taking so long that the flight crew had to be swapped out due to union requirements). I tried to catch a few Zzz’s in the terminal, but the piercing squawk of cherry pickers and freight carts by the night crew prevented anyone from getting a meaningful rest.
   
3. And now, I’m here, indefinitely, in Arizona, riding out my next leg of limbo as AA and Company collectively tries to get its shit together, for lack of a better term.

Yesterday, everyone at Sky Harbor had a different explanation for the chaos. The desk clerks at Sky Harbor offered no explanations, but plenty apologies. AA’s media team, of course, pointed to bad weather (as I stared out the window at clear 70-degree desert skies). My maligned co-travelers said they heard some flights had been scheduled entirely without a pilot or staff to take the plane anywhere, and that American is simply hanging on until the last minute to avoid cancellations.

The Moxy

I was fully prepared to spend another sleepless night in an airport, or even worse, at a seedy 1-star hotel room outside the airport, but AA was able to come through with a temporary solution for passengers willing to brave 90 minutes in line.

AA ended up booking me at a posh, 3-to-4 star hotel called “The Moxy” in Tempe, a few miles away from the airport. It’s technically a Marriott property, but it’s designed to look and operate like many of the “Graduate” boutique hotels I ended up staying in this past summer. The “MOXY” logo on the side of the venue is written in lowercase, pink neon script, and the inside is chock-full of first-world amenities like a craft beer bar, acoustic guitars that anyone can pick up and pluck, and WrestleMania pinball on free play.

There were closer hotels, and cheaper hotels, with plenty of vacancies ready for weary travelers, but they chose to send me (and several dozen other passengers) here for some reason.

Whatever. They’re paying for it.

I might very well be sitting at the fulcrum of the whole process between airlines and striking employees: Add up all the costs of the hotel room ($150/night), two taxi rides ($20 each, before tip), and a meal voucher, AA ended up giving out about $200 in relief to each passenger.

Since each plane holds about 150 passengers, and that’s $30,000 of amenities per cancelled flight.

And now that American has announced close to 2,200 cancelled flights since last Friday, a basic multiplication calculation indicates they’ve already given away up to $6.6 million (or something like it) as a result of the strikes and staffing shortages.

The fact of the matter is, it’s going to get expensive for AA and other companies facing similar woes if they don’t find a resolution soon. One news story I read indicated that AA “reactivated” a bunch of staff on November 1 that had been on leave, but I suppose we’ll have to see if that makes a meaningful difference in the world of air travel right now — COVID, unruly passengers, fuel costs, and all.

One cool little perk I had going for me? The Moxy buys the first drink.

I chose to use my coupon on “Got Moxy?,” the hotel’s signature cocktail. I’m not normally a cocktail guy, but hey, Fuck a Roman, am I right?

A variant on the old “When in Rome…” saying, “Fuck a Roman” has been my adoptive ethos while travelling, either intentionally or situationally. It’s not just a call to take part in local tradition: it’s a calling card for the best day of your life, wherever you may go and whenever you may be there. Don’t just do as the Romans do — thrill them (and yourself).

Anyways, “Got Moxy” is a concoction of Bacardi dragonberry rum, lime juice, cherry juice, and a simple syrup. It tastes like a cousin of a Shirley Temple, or cherry-lime-aid, and I downed it in about 3 minutes. I had been waiting for that drink all evening, and it flew into my veins like a deep, inhaling yoga breath.

The Vine

While free drinks are nice, I unfortunately have to spend more money out of my own pocket to make things meet in the meantime.

My first order of business after checking in at The Moxy was to find some food, as I hadn’t eaten all day (and wasn’t planning on dropping $18 on an airport burger).

So what if I’m stuck in Tempe for the night? I’ve never been here before, and I’ll probably never be here again. Let’s meet some locals and get some grub, I say. Fuck some Romans while we’re at it.

I popped across the street to a relative dive called “The Vine,” a tavern not too far off from most other college bars. This being an ASU bar, there was ample Sun Devil decorations, a pool tables, and a framed jersey of the late Pat Tillman.

I bellied up to the bar and was greeted by Paige, a plucky blonde in a PBR T-shirt, who got right to work serving me a beer. Mark, the manager, came over and told me there were 5 minutes left in Happy Hour, so I’d be wise to make a quick decision on the food deals.

I ordered a “cheese quesadilla” (known to many as just a quesadilla), which came loaded with tomatoes, avocado, jalapeno peppers, and the biggest side dish of sour cream I’ve ever seen in my life.

Right as I started digging in, Mark’s face lit up. He welcomed a regular named “Three-Finger Matt,” who promptly extended his right arm (missing a thumb and the middle finger) to shake hands with Mark.

“See, that’s why we call him that,” Mark said.

Three-Finger Matt waved his paw at me with a toothy grin and nodded silently.

Mark told a joke to Three-Finger Matt about “being a lonely stoner out here in Tempe,” and I chuckled because that’s my sort of people. Mark went on to inform me he’s lived here his whole life, working at The Vine as a manger for 26 years, but that he’s planning to move out to Hawaii soon.

He’s got 2 acres of land, a plan to build a house for $18,000, and nothing on the schedule but a lifetime of coffee, beach days, and growing weed.

The kids aren’t coming along, he said: “That’s no way for a young person to live their lives. There’s nothing for them out there.”

I hate to say, Mark was right. He pulled out his tablet and volunteered a few photos of the property. It was miles away from anything — a grocery store, a bar, a coffee shop. None of that. Life in the desert offered more social opportunities to his college-aged kids, and he was more than fine with getting out there on his own.

Three-Finger Matt picked at an order of barbecue wings, and I downed my unusually spicy quesadilla one quiet, cream-dipped bite at a time.

Back to the Airport

I’m writing this entry with about 1 hour left in my stay at The Moxy. I had a spare moment to get some thoughts out, and it’s been a minute since I broke out the travel writing chops of this past summer.

With providence, I’ll get on the plane to LAX in about five hours. It will be the first time I ever step foot in California.

Then I got a few hours to kill before a midnight red-eye to Indianapolis, a shuttle back to Bloomington, and a quick jaunt over to teach class about 45 minutes after arriving home.

This is all to say, so long as my flight doesn’t get cancelled again. If it does, I have no qualms about another pink-neon night at The Moxy.

I might even say hello to Three-Finger Matt.

Fuck myself a Roman or two.

###

-moose

PS: It can be very difficult to find any trace of relaxation, even in a bougie hotel, if you’re stranded thousands of miles away from home. But I’d be remiss to not take some notes about how pretty “The Moxy” actually is.

I just wish I could have stayed here longer, like I did with the summer Graduate experiment, rather than 16 hours.