Airport Stories [2nd Edition, Istanbul] & The Improvisational Session

Airport Stories [2nd Edition] & the Improvisational Session

This story goes beyond just this one evening in the Istanbul Airport. It started all the way back before I ever even left Iraq, when I found out I would be flying back from the states with a guy I had never met, whom I will refer to as 'Brohammad'. As you can imagine, I had so much fun with this. For it has always been a grand idea of mine to meet someone for the first time, and create a terrible first impression with a little bit of improv and acting. This was a prime opportunity to do just that.

In May I left the Middle East for two weeks, went back to the states (1st Edition of Airport Stories) and spent about a week in Oregon, and a week in Iowa, with lots of traveling and adventures in between. The end of May my sister and I took the local subway to the Chicago Airport, we said our 'ado's' and split our ways.

Having that history, I will now back up to over the time i was purchasing my tickets for this trip.. about a month before. Although I would be flying back to the states alone, I was informed that it was recommended that don't I fly alone upon returning to the Mid East, and I should arrange to have someone with me. A guy, called 'Brohammad' , was about to join our team within weeks of me arriving back. We arranged (through messaging) that we would meet in Istanbul and fly together. He had planned to go earlier and hang out a few days in Istanbul, whereas I would just fly in and get the connecting flight and we would zoom on over to Iraq together, just for safety precausions and such matters.

This was the perfect opportunity. In my mind, Brohammad had never met me. He had no idea who I was, how I sounded, etc. He also had been a part of the organization previously, before I ever came into the picture. Which meant, he knew the people, the work, everything but me.. as I said, this was the perfect opportunity. I've always wanted to meet someone in such an overwhelming, overbearing improvisational way that they would be totally flabbergasted and a bit concerned. Now, doing that to just any random person may put you in the field of feeling stupid or awkward afterward if you have no other human connections to the person who can back up the fact that you are in fact sane, or at least less insane than presented. I am very comfortable with my team here in the Middle East, and as soon as it was set that He and I would be flying together, I began brain storming with everyone around me, expressing any ideas that came to mind of what I could possibly do to make this first meeting just a little more absurd than normal. Soon I concocted a grand idea. I was pleasantly pleased with the feedback I received and was excited beyond words to try out this improv act.

First things first. I chose my character. A basic white-girl. I don't consider myself a highly dramatic person in most areas of my life, acting is defiantly an area that I do know how to be dramatic in. I decided to go with a higher pitched, drawn out, whiny voice. A little ditzy. And lots of weird qwerks about me.

 My original thought was to find him first, maybe follow him around for a bit before I made my approach. After my flight out of Chicago, I landed in Istanbul sometime in the evening. I was really tired, and almost ditched the idea altogether. Better logic kicked in, I grabbed an overly priced iced coffee and decided to go full force with it. I cleaned myself up a bit and brushed my teeth with those disposable tooth brushes they give you on the plane. As I was finished, I threw the brush into the trash, and my mind caught my actions right as it was flying into the can. Wouldn't it be great, if when I met him, we would be walking around and all of a sudden I would pull this tooth brush from my bag and run to a water fountain and start brushing my teeth frantically, exclaiming and creating a big scene all the while. Yes, that would have been gold. I stared at the toothbrush lying in the trashcan, for a split second I considered pulling it out and reusing it.. atlas, I decided it wasn't worth the germ count and left my idea with the trashcan.

I made my way to my gate, upon my first arrival he was no where to be found. I figured he must have been doing his own thing and in no hurry to get to the gate. I in turn, did my own thing as well. I kept my eyes open enough to see him near to the gate, and then eventually walking away from it. At this point, my tiredness was kicking in again, and I once again considered dropping the whole thing, and then, straight ahead of me, there he was. Eye contact was made. And I, being out of character, completely unprepared mentally to present myself as a white-girl, dove behind a pillar, peeked around the other side, and fast walked to a random gate, by random people and sat down. I guess this was weird quirk #1 about my improv character: Gets frightened easily at sight of people and runs away.

Later, in talking to Brohammad about all of this, He said he remembers seeing me and wondered if I knew that was my wrong gate, but decided to keep walking anyways. He chose to pretend he didn't see me and just kept walking. Completely ignoring my odd gesture, and continuing to the food court. I on the other hand, waited till he passed, and continued onto my own thing. I thought about following him back to the food court, but, as I said, I was really tired and decided to not waste my energy on such a petty thing. I needed to be full blown energized when we officially met.

Meanwhile, Brohammad, after eating in the food court, decided he should make sure I wasn't completely lost, and see me to my correct gate, since he was after all flying with me so I would be safe and all. I peered through some scarves in a gift shop as I watched him sit at the gate, and then get up to start looking for me, since I hadn't arrived yet. 

I dashed away from the scarves and around the wall. Running full force along the back side of the scarf shop, as I approached the end, I slowed to round the corner, tearing the baseball hat off of my head, and plopping some snazzy sunglasses to finish off my look. Not more than a split second after rounding the corner, I was stopped dead in my tracks, there, about 15 feet in front of me he stood. Brohammad, he stood no more than 5'5".5, hair neatly styled, and completely innocent and oblivious to what was about to hit him. 

Instinct kicked in. My inner white-girl did not let me down, I marched straight up to him.

"Hi, you must me Helen." He said casually. Later remarking to me that someone had advised him to call me that. Completely unfazed by being called by my real name, I opened my mouth, and without room to breathe, began speaking unfathomable amounts of words. Please remember, in saying all of this I had an extremely annoying whiny, highly pitched, drawn out voice. Speaking excruciatingly fast.

"HI! You must be _____! I'm Ellie! I'm so glad to finally meet you! I've been waiting so long for this! Every since I first heard that we were going to be flying together I started praying about it! and I just think this is a really good thing!"

As were speaking, He stepped on an walking escalator. "Oh no, I prefer to walk" I declared, "I don't do escalators, cause what if my foot would get caught or something, and I would come to the end and trip or worse, you never know, I prefer to walk beside," It was a very random decision to say that, as you all know from my last post of Airport Stories, escalators are the very last thing I am afraid of, however, Brohammad didn't know any the wiser, and he just nodded politely as I fast walked beside the escalator heading to our gate.

"SO," I continued, "I really don't want us to get off on the wrong foot, I should tell you straight up, I have seven toes..."

Him: "Okay."

Me, without taking a breath: "But its okay, because I don't judge anyone who has any more or any less, and..." blah blah blah.... I started rambling on about something neither of us remembers. I would imagine he doesn't remember because he was completely blown off guard and alarmed at my transparency in telling him not only do I have seven toes, but also that I had been praying about us meeting. Weird Quirks #2: Feels the need to share extremely weird personal things with a basically complete stranger.

 If nothing else, this blog will teach you what not to do when meeting someone for the first time. Or give you wonderful ideas on how to get a reaction out of them. Mr. Brohammad, however, gave me almost no reaction. I was honestly disappointed. I was hoping for at least a little feed back to play off of and create more awkward conversations and encounters, but his best response was a simple, "Okay." Little did I know, his mind was racing with questions and concerns, of who in the world is this girl, and how is she possibly serving in the Middle East.

As I continued to ramble, we made it to our gate. I set my bag down, "Do you have on of those little disposable tooth brushes they give you on the airplane!?" I asked, almost desperate, "I really need to brush my teeth, I just love brushing them, and I could really use a tooth brush right now!" (Insert Disclaimer: I really do love brushing my teeth, but in no way would honestly ask to borrow ANYONES personal toothbrush, and/or desperately plead an almost stranger to let me borrow theirs.)

Him: "Uhmmm, No, I don't."

Me, setting my coffee down: "Well, fine, I'm gonna go use the bathroom, at least I can wash my face, that wont make up for my dirty teeth, but its better than nothing." I marched off into the distance, allowing him to ponder everything that just happened.

I did walk near to a bathroom, it was out of sight of there he was sitting. I laughed and laughed to myself, tried to gain composure. He was giving me no feedback, no sarcasm, or gullibility. Nothing to work with. But I wouldn't quit now. I was slowing building my self into this crazy, unpredictable, dramatic white-girl. While waiting out the time away from him, a young mother stood next to me with her three children, two walking, one in a stroller. I was only going to pretend to be in the 'Bathroom' for 5-7 minutes, this was now quickly becoming more like 15-20. 

"Do you know where I can buy some juice?" The young mother asked, very scattered.

"Yeah," I said, dropping my act and immediately reverting back to the original Ellie, "There's some shops down (I pointed) there that should have some."

"Oh, Okay..." She sounded unsure,

"Do you want me to show you? I have some extra time before my flight leaves, I can walk you down there.." I replied.

"Yeah, Yeah that might be nice, I just, its just I have these kids and..." She seemed very distracted. The children were misbehaving. "I need to use the bathroom first..." She began heading into the restroom with her two kids, leaving her stroller next to me.

Surprised at her leaving her baby I called after her, "Do you want me to watch your baby while your use the restroom?" Which was apparently what was happening.

"NO! she said, I have someone else helping me..." and she disappeared around the corner.

'Weird,' I thought. I looked around. There was no one else around, and here I was stuck with a baby, it felt wrong to just leave, but she did just tell me not to keep an eye on the baby, so maybe it would be alright to walk way? Eventually another lady eased near to the bathroom, I was running out of options. I felt like I should get back to my gate, but didn't really feel right about just leaving the baby.

I approached the lady, "Are you watching this baby?"

"Yeah, I am..." She said.

So I left. It was a very weird situation. I tried to shake it off my mind, I truly hope that baby got reunited with its mother eventually. Meanwhile, I headed back to the gate, back to Brohammad, back to my 'white-girl' improv act.

Upon re-arriving at the gate, I picked up where I left off.

"Oh my Goodness!" I exclaimed, "You should have SEEN that line in the bathroom! Like a mile long, gracious! And I asked everyone in line if they had a toothbrush, and NO ONE did! What terrible hygiene!"

A slightly terrified look crossed His face. Upon later enlightening, after we met on the correct terms of me as a normal person, he expressed his horrid concern and asked, "You didn't actually ask everyone if they had toothbrushes, did you?" and I reassured him with a "No." But in that moment in the airport, he kept his mouth shut, as his thoughts consumed any last hope that I might not be completely crazy. In that moment, his first impression of me rapidly decreased from 'Maybe alright' to 'hopeless and awkward', and I continued on. 

Scooping up my coffee, and sitting down, "OH MY WORD!" my voice had a horrified squeak to it, "Did you DRINK some of this!?" I thrust the coffee into his face, "I Cannot believe you!" 

Weird Quirk #3: Freaks Out Easily.

Him: "No, I didn't."

Me: "Yes, YES YOU DID! I KNOW that you did! It was all the way up HERE when I left! and now its almost GONE!" (I still had a good 3/4th in the cup) 

Him: "I didn't touch it"

Me: (Thinking, well at least I'm getting a little more of a reaction out of him on this one, continued on full force) "THAT is just wrong! I cant believe you drank my coffee!" (I matched over to the trash can, and slammed the cup into it.) (Insert Disclaimer: Its really not that far off that I would slightly flip out at someone drinking my drink, though I wouldn't quite have responded in that sort of manner. And, obviously I knew he hadn't really drank it, but, in order to play my dramatic part up to par, I enjoyed every bit of that scene. Also, upon later realization, I discovered he is the very last person that would ever drink from someone else's cup, for all those who've named me a germ freak in the past, it may be time to move that title onto someone else.. just saying, I think there are some people out there who are defiantly more 'germ freaky' than me.:)

Me: Upon coming back from the trash can, "THAT is just not okay.. you should really think first before doing things like that."

I think this was the breaking point. He was seriously concerned about me, and wondered why in the world did no one think to warn him about me. He also said, after re-hashing everything, that he was "Ready to pull the team leader aside once we got back to the base and have a discussion about if it really was the right thing for me to be here...." I laughed when I heard that. My improv worked.

Back to the airport:

While sitting at our gate we began chatting. He rambled on and on about different experiences he had in countries and the history of various things. It was, in all honestly very interesting. Had I not been trying to portray a ditzy character, I'm sure we would have had lots to talk about. But, alas, to hold up my end of the act, when he asked me a question about the history of a country, I replied with, "Actually, I'm not very interested in Science...." 

Weird Quirk #4: Super Blonde and Unintelligent to the point of cringing.

He didn't do much speaking after that.

I however made little comments about different things like how I don't eat carbs except I make exceptions for crackers, I chewed my crackers really loud, drank obnoxiously loud gulps of water, chewed a wad of gum bigger than my mouth... Nothing. Little to no reaction. He was extremely polite for what I'm sure his mind was secretly rolling its eyes at. 

"What SEAT number are you!?" I broke the silence. "DO YOU THINK WERE SITTING TOGETEHR!" I prolly sounded a little too excited while saying that...

Him: "Uhhhm.." Pulling out his ticket, "We booked them separate, so I don't think we will be." (Later he expressed how much he was hoping he WOULD NOT be stuck next to me on the plane.)

Me: Looking at my ticket, "Yeah, its probably best if we don't, because I actually have this skin condition (Quirk #5: Nonexistent Skin Condition) that reacts when I sit too near to cotton or polyester..". (I was actually wearing a t-shirt made of said materials)  "... I mean, no offence to your shirt of anything, but if I sit by you for too long ill prolly break out in a rash, and it'll be all your shirt fault." (I was also secretly hoping we would not be seated next together, for reason 1, because I had just impulsively said I don't eat carbs, and I actually really love international flights meal, carbs and all. Reason 2, because I really didn't want to carry on this act the whole flight, I wanted to relax, sleep, and talk normally to the people next to me.)

As we boarded the plane, the flight attendant welcomed us on, "Are you together?" She said, motioning to him and I, "No!" I said fiercely.. "I mean, we are going to the same place, but were not sitting together,"

"Oh I can help you with that," she said grinning as we both grimaced, "Its not a full flight so take your seats and call me once we take off and ill help you sit next to each other."

I smiled and kept walking, turning back to Brohammad, and exclaimed how we really should just keep our original seats and not sit next to each other. Whew, crisis averted.

The flight was long and enjoyable. I had a man next to me, but I scooted to the empty seat so there was an empty seat between us which made it even more enjoyable. By the end of the flight I was fully exhausted and out of character. I wanted to call it quits right then and there. Little conversation was exchanged as we got off the plane. Granted, it was late evening, and I was already exhausted to start off with.. now I was just a zombie. We made our way to the luggage claim, still only speaking when needed. I decided I needed to hold on for just a Little bit longer. When meeting the rest of my team on the outside of the meet and greet point I would drop my act and see how confused I could make him by suddenly being as normal as this Ellie can be. While waiting I did ask how his flight was, and he asked about mine. "It was really good!" I exclaimed, way to happy for that time of night, "Except I sat next to that guy," I pointed in the general direction of the man, "And he was wearing cotton.. or polyester… or something because I now have this super bad rash!" I turned my arm over and revealed a big patch of poison oak that had been there all along but in the moment worked terribly well to blame by alleged reaction on. He looked genuinely weirded out.

We grabbed our bags. We headed out the door. There sat the rest of our team. I ran up to them, hugged my roommate, and started talking in a very Ellie way of talking. He did the same, greeted the rest of team (which he knows very well). At this point he was so traumatized by who he believed I was, that it didn't even click that I was no longer speaking or acting the way I had been.

I turned to him, extended my hand and said, "Hi. My name is Ellie, and I actually don't have 7 toes." 

Him: "Oh, okay." Shakes my hand in a very confused manner. No sense of relief at all in his voice, just more confusion. 

The car ride home was filled with laughter and chatter as I dramatically explained all that had happened to the rest of the team. Brohammad added in what his thoughts were on the whole thing and finally came to grips with the fact that I'm not a crazy women... well, he may still be coming to grips with that. Overall, it was one of my most fun times spent in an airport, and out of it has come many many laughs and memories, some of which I'm afraid I will never outlive, as, to this day, I am continually getting teased about  my '7 toes'. 

And now, with the story said and done, another chapter of my Airport stories comes to close.

If you made it all the way to the end, congratulations, this was a long one.