Escape from Tel-Aviv

Getting on a flight out of Tel-Aviv on standby requires persistence, patience and athletic ability. The first I have. The second, no. And the third is waning as I slide down the backside of my 30s.

I only sustained minor injuries on the last-minute dash to the gate, but I'll get to that in a bit.

The flight we needed to get on was scheduled to depart at 11:40 p.m. At 10:40, things were looking really good for the dozen of us who were hoping to get out of Tel-Aviv that night. One group we knew from Tuesday night's failed mission.

All the regular passengers had boarded and they had told us that they would begin calling us by priority level and processing boarding passes. There were several people who had higher priority standby status than we did and after they were processed, it was a our turn.

It was 10:50 when they began processing our tickets and that's when things started going to hell. First a late-arriving revenue customer arrived. There was a flurry of activity to get his baggage checked and tagged, get his boarding pass processed and get him to the gate.

They closed all their windows and began processing standby customers again. We were in the process of getting our boarding passes when another late passenger showed up. They informed him that they had closed the windows. He wouldn't take no for an answer and began arguing with the attendant. Everything stopped and the moments ticked away.

Apparently, he was a Palestinian. He said he had been detained at a checkpoint for 3 hours. There were no checkpoints inside of Israel, so I assumed he was a West Bank Palestinian who had come from Ramallah through Qalandiya checkpoint. I was fairly certain that the Israelis did not allow West Bank Palestinians to fly out of Tel-Aviv.

He had papers, which he waived at the attendants while arguing. I'm sure they had heard his story before. The Israelis at the counter most likely had worked at checkpoints during their mandatory service in the Israeli military. There was no way this guy was getting on the flight. Meanwhile, precious seconds ticked by while they argued instead of finishing our boarding passes.

Eventually, two security guards led the Palestinian man away while he yelled and waived his papers in the air.

"You'll need to run if you're going to make it," one of the counter attendants told us.

We took off along with another attendant who would help expedite our passage through the security checkpoint and passport control.

After passing through the security checkpoint, we took off at a full sprint down a long corridor that led to the passport control area.

The floor on the corridor leading from security to passport control is not designed for running. It was like trying to run on an ice rink. But we had no choice if we were going to make the gate.

Everything was going fine until Sophia dropped her book. It slid across the floor and out in front of me. Rather than stopping to pick the book up, I attempted to scoop it off the floor without breaking stride. This turned out to not be a good idea. I got the book, but my foot slipped and I quickly found myself sliding down the corridor while doing the splits.

People behind us were laughing at the sight of the big white guy with a backpack sliding down the corridor while holding a book and doing the splits. I would have been laughing too except that I was completely stressed out and the splits had been accompanied by a tearing sound. Unfortunately, the tearing sound I'd heard was not the crotch of my pants, but my actual crotch. I realized this when I got back up and tried to continue running. Pain shot through my leg like electrical shocks. I kept running. All I cared about was making the gate. We had to make this flight. Adrenaline masked the pain that I would get to encounter later.

We went through passport control where some guy tried to step in front of us because he was in a hurry. I was just about to pick him up and throw him across the airport when I realized that I wouldn't make the flight for sure if I did that. Instead I pushed his passport out of the way at the window counter so that the passport control agent could continue with ours. He tried to push it back up under the window but I kept the path blocked with my hand and moved my body so that the passport control agent couldn't see the guy nor hear his ramblings about his passport problem.

After getting our passports stamped with exit visas, we took off down the final leg to the gate.

This part was carpeted and I ran as fast as my injured leg would allow. My goal was to get to the gate and stall them until Kacey and the girls caught up.

While I ran the 400 meters to the gate, Kacey and the girls were picked up by an airport courtesy car.

We arrived at the gate at the same time.

I was bent over, sweating and ready to puke.

"Daddy, we rode on a cart!" Emma exclaimed.

"That's...nice," I said between breaths.

"Are you okay Daddy?"

"Yeah, Daddy's just fine. Get on the plane."

We boarded and they closed the airplane door right behind us.

I slugged back a handful of ibuprofen as the flight attendants made final preparations for takeoff. Pain continued shooting through my leg but I didn't care. We made the flight and were finally getting the hell out of Tel-Aviv. And at the moment, that was all that mattered.