I have been unfaithful.

Not in the way you’re thinking. This is about infidelity on a metaphysical level. I travel by train less these days. Now, I could argue that I’ve simply grown tired of the Railway Fairy, or that the CO₂ situation of our planet has suddenly become irrelevant to me, or that fuel has become affordable again. The topic of affordability alone would easily deserve its own blog entry.

No, this is not about such trivial matters.

This is about researching the railway fairy’s family tree. The first milestone of my research:

The Flight Fairy

Much like the railway fairy, the flight fairy operates in airplanes. It doesn’t matter which class you fly, which airline you choose, or which route you take. It doesn’t even matter whether you know the flight fairy personally or not.

She works far more cunningly than her sister.

With her, things always happen before or after. Never during.

This gives us the comforting illusion that flying is much faster than traveling by train. Have you ever noticed the absence of your luggage during a flight? No. Of course not. That happens afterward. Have you ever had to take off your clothes during the flight? No. That happens before.

Last week, I set out to pay our beloved capital a short visit, and I’ll admit it openly: base capitalism dragged me there. I had one appointment at 11:00 a.m. and another at 1:00 p.m. So I thought to myself, I’ll take a plane. It’s much faster, and at least I won’t have to deal with the railway fairy. After all, the flight itself only takes an hour.

At this point, a light should begin to dawn on the reader.

In the successful TV series Mad About You, the husband once observes: “Everything takes four hours.”

He was right.

So what happened that day?

I got up at 4:00 a.m. Yes. Four. In the morning.

At 4:45, I woke my wife so she could drive me to the station. At 5:10, my train left for Karlsruhe, where at 6:10 the bus to the airport departed. At 7:00, I arrived safely at the airport and checked in.

To be fair, I probably had the best seat on the entire plane. I could choose freely. Window seat. 20A.

Let’s play a small planning game.

If you have an appointment at 11:00 a.m., and you know you need half an hour from the airport to your client… And if we assume a flight time of one hour…

to be continued…