One stereotypical trait of autism is a lack of understanding of the feelings of others meaning inappropriate behaviour and a failure to ‘read the room’. Perhaps this goes part of the way to explaining what happened at Grandad’s funeral.

We are not really a close family. Its not that we have fallen out over a swarded affair or financial squabble, its more that we all live separate lives and never get round to calling each other. As a result, when we do get together at a wedding or christening, we never really progress past the small talk stage. This, plus a general dislike of social situations, noise & crowds means I don’t deal well with family occasions.

We all knew Grandad was about to pass away, so when the call came it didn’t come as a surprise. In fact, I just carried on as normal and went to work without really thinking. After all it was quiz night, I had to go and find out who remembered the capital city of Argentina. What came next week was a bigger surprise, I was asked to go to the funeral. It was on the other side of the country, needing three different trains. Honestly, my feeling was that it was such a pain to go, I’d rather not.

Then came a question that changed my mind. “Do you want to say a few words at the service?” The correct answer should have been no, however with no thought at all I said yes. I stand up in front of people all the time reading out quiz questions, calling bingo and making announcements. A funeral speech will be no problem. The next week I got a call asking what the subject of my speech would be as they needed to put it in the service sheet. I hadn’t really thought about it, so I said to call it “a few words”. That would do.

Fast forward a few weeks and I was on the train (three trains) to the funeral with still no real idea what I was going to say ‘never mind, something will come, it will be fine’ I told myself. In fact, I spent most of the train journey thinking how sad it was that one of my favourite singers, Aretha Franklyn, had died the previous day and trying to download her greatest hits via the dodgy rail Wi-Fi.

In the car between the train station and the crematorium I made my decision. If I had thought to ask anyone, it would have become very clear that the content of my speech would be a bad idea, but I didn’t ask. Also, nobody asked me what I was going to talk about either.

I got to the podium and fished a newspaper cutting out of my bag. I then read out most of the obituary to Aretha Franklyn to my baffled family members. I talked about her grammy awards, how many albums she sold and her activism. Then at the end (I was so pleased with myself when I thought of it), I said “but unlike Aretha, Grandad didn’t need to THINK about RESPECT, he just showed it”. I made sure to particularly emphasise think & respect so everyone realised it was a clever reference.

Quite rightly, my family was baffled. Nobody even mentioned the speech (at least not in my presence) and it wasn’t until months later it occurred to me quite how ridiculous it was to just read out a newspaper obituary for a civil rights activist who didn’t really have much in common with the deceased we were there to mourn.

What I have learned is that next time I am asked if I want to make a speech at a family occasion, it would be better to just say no.

My probation period at the rural pub is over. I assume I have passed; this is because nobody (including me) has mentioned it and in this case, no news is good news. So, how has it been going?

It turns out I am a hopeless bartender, to the extent the regular customers wait for somebody else to be free rather than ask me for a pint. I never seem to be able to find the correct glasses for the correct beers and everything I pour is either completely flat or is almost entirely foam. Prava is a particular problem, sometimes I pour it fine, other times I have to scoop large amounts of foam into the sink (while trying to distract the customer).

I also live in complete terror that somebody will order cocktails. Wine is fine for me (as long as I don’t need to use a corkscrew), spirits are ok (assuming I can find them on the shelf) but cocktails are a nightmare. The boss bought me a ‘Cocktail Making 101’ book, then photocopied it so the type is larger but honestly, I usually find somebody else if cocktails are ordered. One day last week there was nobody else around, so I told a guest that cocktails were not available. Luckily the boss didn’t find out.

I was asked to concentrate on the restaurant instead. When it is quiet this is fine. I remember to take away the starter cutlery, give out steak knives and present the bills nicely. However, when it is busy, it all goes to pot. I have a (justifiably) bad reputation for putting orders through incorrectly, so the customers get a variety of things they didn’t want. Another problem is forgetting to put the order through so people wait ages for food that wasn’t cooked. My autistic brain doesn’t deal well with busy nights. Being unable to follow a process is very stressful and on one very busy Sunday I had a shutdown and had to go home.

One thing that has been amazing is the support from the manager. We have a very large number of staff who are neurodiverse or who have mental health problems and the manager really tries to find ways to get the best out of everyone. In my case, this has been moving me away from the busy Friday/Saturday nights and onto breakfast shifts. Perhaps ‘breakfast shift’ is a little misleading as it finishes at 4pm.

A typical day starts at 7am with me opening the pub. I am the only person in the building and there is something lovely about working under my own steam, turning on the machines, following the checklist and counting the floats.

Then at 8am, breakfast begins. Breakfast is great as people can only order cafetieres or tea in pots so I don’t need to battle with my sworn enemy (the coffee machine). At least 50% of the orders will involve combinations of things not on the menu but it is included in the price so I also don’t need to worry about putting it through the till. Why can’t everything be this easy?

Once breakfast is over, more staff arrive and I can get onto the admin. Inevitably there will be a whole load of answer phone messages that need responding to. Nobody else seems to get round to this so after a couple of days off there are so many to deal with. The highest number of unread messages I have seen is 48. The later ones were things like “I have been trying to call for days”, “does this phone work” and “have you shut down?”. Depending on what everyone wants (generally reservation enquiries or table bookings) it can take a couple of hours.

With any luck by the time I get back from the office, the staff will have set up for lunch although this depends how distracted they got my dogs/babies/leftover breakfast items/tik tok videos. The lunchtime service is completely dependant on the weather. If it is a nice day, it will be busy but if it is cold, wet or windy everyone stays away. Lunch is easier than dinner as people only have one course and that is mainly sandwiches meaning it is much harder for me to mess up the ordering (though not impossible).

By 2pm, I am on the home stretch and getting ready for check in. I program the keys, look through the packages and then chase up the housekeepers who are either on a go slow having been distracted by dogs/babies/leftover breakfast items/tik tok videos or in a rush to get home because a reality star I haven’t heard of is on Loose Women. This means the rooms can be in various states of cleanliness. It is not unusual for me to be recleaning toilets, changing stained pillowcases or removing lost underwear from wardrobes. Still, I would rather do this myself than have to apologise to customers later…

At 3pm,the next duty manager arrives and I handover all the drama of the day before going home for a nap and hoping my colleagues won’t have too many of my mistakes to sort out.

Either way… my probation has ended and they are stuck with me.

I am aware it is a Christmas classic that people watch every year but it occurred to me that I have never actually seen It’s A Wonderful Life (or if I have I can’t remember the plot). So, on a whim I decided to buy a ticket.

The venue was a spectacular theatre that I had been to before, so I knew what to expect. I had half listened to something about it on the radio so knew it would be more than just a regular film screening, perhaps the orchestra would be playing along. Even better there was a special access performance at 11am. I was sold.

While I was buying my ticket, it was explained to me what an access performance was. The lights would stay on, the loud bangs would be toned down and the audience could make as much noise as they wanted, coming and going whenever they pleased. As an autistic person, this sounded brilliant. They also gave me a book of notes so I could follow what was going on.

There were a few things that I had not considered. Firstly, access performances are very good for children. School groups can run around, rustle sweets and chat as much as they wished. I sat away from them. Next, babies. So many babies. Although I much preferred the babies over the school groups.

I got to my seat and there were notes flashing across an LED screen. It seemed like people could send text messages and they would be displayed for all to see. The first one said something like “Helen, you are the best thing on the stage”. I looked in my program and there was nobody called Helen so I assumed that they must be old messages or examples to encourage people to join in. Maybe that is why I missed an obvious red flag in the following message “enjoy your first opera”.

Before it started, somebody came on stage to make a welcome speech, followed by the conductor telling us about the instruments. There was then a demonstration of a Polynesian dance, well to be precise, one move from a Polynesian dance essentially a slide, step together followed by a foot slap. We were asked to join in. Not easy from a seated position.

This all took upwards of 20 minutes, and I was getting restless. Flicking through my program, a piece of paper fell loose featuring information about a cast member not in the main program. This paper again mentioned opera. ‘Hang on’, I thought ‘I am at an opera with what feels like 4.6 billion babies, this could be a long morning’.

To be fair to the production, they tried really hard to make sure everyone knew what was going on. The words were projected onto the screen and the plot was spelt out in large text in my book of notes. The audience were well behaved, there was not as much noise or wandering around as I was expecting (apart from the infants) although that didn’t stop several people huffing and moving to other seats. Perhaps the regular opera goers were less sure what an access performance was.

Sitting near the back with the lights on meant I was constantly distracted by the various activities that audience members were up to. One man did a crossword, somebody else seemed to be writing Christmas cards. I kept having to go back to my notes and work out what happened during my concentration lapses. I completely missed that the leading lady was an angel. (Hopefully, nobody will tell me off for that plot spoiler from a story more than 75 years old).

The interval came, we got a chance to look at some costumes and afterwards somebody asked me if I had enjoyed the show… if I am honest… I had no idea. I had enjoyed all the commotion; the actual show mainly passed me by.

Thinking back, I have a number of reflections on the day

• Access performances are very worthwhile and 11am theatre is very pleasurable
• People who don’t regularly go to the theatre enjoy it much more than people who do
• I need to pay more attention when making decisions to go to things
• Babies are indifferent to opera

But did I enjoy it? Yes.

I found a clause on the ninth page of my contract which said the company would organise the relocation for staff members transferring to other sites. As a non-driver, I jumped on this. I was hoping that they would find me a van I could put everything in, instead the manager drove me himself in his car. The move also happened two weeks earlier than planned, perhaps he was keen to get rid of me. Either way, it solved my problem.

One of the skills I picked up from the cruise ships is the ability to pack and unpack quickly. I simply don’t understand the people that take two weeks to pack a suitcase for their weekend away, I can pack up everything I own in 45 mins. So it was, the posh hotel closed in the morning, and I was in my new flat in a new town that evening. It was all a whirlwind but as I knew it was coming, I was prepared, and the move was fine.

The flat itself is just round the corner from the rural pub I am working at. The company only bought it earlier this year and I am the first permanent resident. It is very large (four bedrooms) plus a big kitchen, to be frank, it is much too big for me but I am enjoying living alone. It took me two weeks to realise it would be safe to leave groceries in the cupboard, nobody would steal them as there was nobody else there. I noticed that I am close enough to the market square that my flat, or at least the bits of my flat I use, benefit from the town’s free wi-fi.

I requested a kettle and a toaster (neither of which were already there) and I was settling in nicely until the builders arrived. Apparently, now the building is occupied it needed to be fitted with emergency lighting and an upgraded fire alarm system. Why this couldn’t have been done while the building was empty remains unclear.

The work took more than a week and happened before and after the bank holiday weekend so for three days, I had floorboards up and holes in the ceiling. They left nails on the floor for me to stand on, plaster covered everything I owned and, on the Friday, they left my front door open all evening (while I was at work). They ate their lunch at my kitchen table and used all my toilet roll for their plastering. It is fair to say I wasn’t getting on well with the builders. On the last night, they were still banging around until 8:15pm. Who knew builders worked that late?

Anyway, It took me nearly a week to clear up all the mess since they left but at least they have gone and my peace has returned. That was until the building report arrived…

They have found asbestos…

               “So, what do you actually want to do?” This was the very reasonable question put to me by the lady from HR. I didn’t feel I could tell her the truth which was, ‘I don’t really mind, I’ll do whatever you tell me to’.

               The posh hotel is closing. We all knew it was coming. It was supposed to be happening since 2018 and because of that nothing has been maintained in years. There are four rooms that can’t be sold due to leaks in the roof, pictures are being hung in unusual places to cover up holes in the walls or damp patches, the fuses blow frequently and most of the woodwork is rotten. In fact, during the heatwave, I opened a window and the whole frame fell out. We have all become experts at distracting people from all this to such an extent that people more often complained about the state of the carpets or age of the curtains rather than the more serious structural issues.

               We received our redundancy notices a few months earlier. I was asked to be an employee representative, I declined and quickly booked holiday I didn’t really want just so they couldn’t ask me again. I didn’t want to be responsible for myself let alone everyone else too.

               I was not too worried. I have moved hotels before and every few days there is a news story about severe staff shortages in the hospitality sector (along with most other sectors). I felt sure I would get something. My problem is admin. My autistic brain can’t cope with lots of choices and I find form filling very stressful. Because of my admin fears, it seems much easier to stay with the company and move to one of their other various establishments around the country, rather than look elsewhere (too many options).

               In preparing for my meeting with the lady from HR, the only things I had decided was that a) I wanted somewhere that included a place to live and b) I wanted to get off the minimum wage. Where the hotel was, doesn’t seem to important and neither does the work itself. I figured, they have access to enough of my appraisals to decide what I can and can’t do. I told her all this and she just looked at me in a confused manner.

               “So, what do you actually want to do?” That question again. To waste time, I got a little notebook out of my pocket and opened it at a page that had writing on. The writing was irrelevant to the conversation – bus times for a place I lived years ago – but it gave me time to think of something to say.

               “I think I would like to be an Assistant Manager at somewhere not too big”. Was this actually what I wanted? No idea.

               Three days later, the manager of a rural pub came to interview me. It occurred to me that the fact he has come to visit me and that it was so soon, meant that I would get the job. He was clearly desperate. In fact, he told me that the position had been vacant for a while and nobody else had applied. I didn’t mind a bit. We chatted for a while and then he offered me the job. I accepted it without a second thought. In hindsight, perhaps it would have been better to go and visit the rural pub, after all I would be living there too and I really don’t know the area, but it seemed like a solution to the problem and that was fine. Five days after my meeting with the lady from HR, I signed the contract.

               Shortly after that, I realised that I don’t really know what being the assistant manager of a rural pub actually involves…

I have been visiting the Edinburgh festival for years. Not just the comedy but the films, plays, books, exhibitions and street performances too. I try and stay away from the famous names and instead go for things that catch my imagination. The scale of it is vast (over 55,000 performances across 317 venues) as is the quality. Everything from professionally designed high quality extravaganzas through to things that are essentially ‘people messing around’ in basements.

Memorable moments from my last few visits include

• A comedy show with only three of us in the audience (the other two didn’t speak English)
• A version of Jekyll and Hyde from the perspective of the monster performed as an interpretive dance
• Something performed in a hotel pool where the audience members were invited to swim with the cast members

Very often I choose shows depending on what is closest and starting shortly. A few years ago I was walking down a street when it started raining so heavily, I rushed into the nearest foyer and ended up at a show so terrible, the performer stopped to tell the sound technician to ‘please sigh more quietly’.

However, as an autistic person, the Edinburgh festival can present a lot of problems. They can be hard to plan as so many things run late, plus there is a lot of noise, many venues are incredibly hot and of course, there are so many people there.

This year, the festival was a tough one for me. On the first morning, I got lost and ended up rushing to see a 10am show. Because I was away from my regular routine and overstimulated with the noise and crowds, I turned badly and twisted my hip causing a lot of pain. Over the next few hours, my body must have tried to adapt and so my other hip was overcompensating and that started to get very sore as well, meaning I had to adopt a slow shuffle as I moved from place to place. Edinburgh is not an accessible city. It has a lot of steps, steep slopes, busy roads and that is before you add in the festival crowds. To top it all off, I got my dates mixed up so the 10am show I rushed to see wasn’t actually on.

One particular moment was when I arrived at the main entrance of the Assembly Rooms (the normal home of the university) to see Choir of Man, a show I knew had been on in London and the main selling point was a working bar on stage which the audience members could use to get free beer. Obviously, without the ‘free’ beer, the ticket prices would be cheaper.

Anyway, the way into the show was up a huge stone staircase which with my twisted hips was impossible. I asked the lady at the entrance what I should do and she kindly explained the best way was round the side (up a hill) where I could use the accessible entrance. Although when I tried to do this, I was stopped by a security guard who told me I couldn’t pass due to the upcoming tattoo parade and instead I should ‘use the stairs’.

So back I shuffled round three sides of this huge building, fighting against the noisy crowds and after being given wrong directions by two different stewards I eventually found the accessible entrance and was put into a service lift which led me to the backstage area. Judging by the reactions of the various staff members, I got the feeling they were unused to this scenario. It was exciting being backstage in such a large theatre as people rushed by with large pieces of equipment. I was quite happy observing this show but following a hushed meeting of the various staff members, it was decided I should wait in the bar instead. This was fine, I said, how do I get there? Just down the stairs, came the reply. Another clue that this scenario was a new one for them.

The only way to get there without the stairs was through the sound booth where the audio engineers were working on another show (a very impressive street dance troop) and I shuffled through, giving them all a fright in the process. The bar was a temporary affair set up in the middle of a huge regal hall and I was the only customer. The bartender came over to chat to me (I don’t think she had anything else to do) and I asked who was the man immortalised in a large painting in the centre of the wall. “I don’t know, probably some colonial slave owner” came the response.

The show itself was fine, a rowdy singalong affair, all the characters were introduced even though there was no storyline, much of the time was taken up by the free beer queue but the audience didn’t seem to mind, they were having a great time. I think I would have preferred to watch the performance from the backstage corridor I was in earlier but maybe that says more about me than the show itself.

I decided that would be my last night in Edinburgh and I would go home the following day. There will be many more festivals and I can come back another year when I am feeling better. This is what I did and typically, the day after I got back, my hips went back to normal.

Thinking back on it, despite everything, I did have a good time this year.

• A talented seagull snatched a sandwich out of my hand without leaving a mark
• There was a ‘meal deal’ advertising a glass of wine and a Snickers bar for £4.50
• I asked for the autograph of a composer to be told nobody does that anymore.  

Next year, however, I will be more careful to check my dates and not rush to things that are not on.

* Less than half of autistic adults live independently

* 78.3% of autistic adults are unemployed

The reasons behind these facts are complicated but it is true that for many single autistic people such as me, true independence is hard.

I am lucky that I have always managed to find a job. Now, the market is in my favour, there are jobs everywhere. I work in the hospitality industry, and it feels like every hotel, every resort, every restaurant, everybody is hiring. Getting the job is easy. It’s keeping the job that is harder.

Routine is important and unexpected changes are difficult to deal with, workplaces can be full of these. Autistic people are not always great at teamwork but can often be brilliant researchers with an eye for details that others often miss.

However, my struggle is housing. I realised a long time ago that I don’t think I will ever be able to get my own house. Even if I won the lottery, the process of finding a place, doing the legal paperwork, arranging utilities, dealing with any building work and sourcing furniture is too much for me. The idea of all that turns me cold. I can understand why so many autistic people stay with family forever or end up in some kind of assisted living, it’s just easier.

My solution is different, I live at work. One of the great things about working in hotels is that there is often staff accommodation. Furnished rooms with utilities included and an on-site maintenance team to deal with problems, it really is a great situation for me. Often, I get free food from the restaurant too – but does this count as independent living? Probably not…

So, what happens when you loose your job? The home goes too… This happened to me a few years ago (during the start of the covid crisis) when I was given three days notice that both my job and my flat were being taken away from me. It took me a long time to get over that. In fact, for more than two years afterwards, I carried on checking my work emails, it was still part of my routine.

Then late last year, I got a job in the posh hotel with a lovely room to stay in. Things were going well until mid-summer 2022 when it was announced the hotel was closing and I received a letter of redundancy.

To be continued…

There are many weird and wonderful phobias around. Some are well known, some are not….

• Chirophobia – fear of hands

• Nomophobia – fear of not having your mobile phone

• Xanthophobia – fear of the colour yellow

• Omphalophobia – fear of belly buttons

• Arachibutyrophobia – fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth

My phobia is a fear of first aid. Not getting it, I have no problem with the idea of somebody putting my arm in a sling, putting my hand in cold water or giving me an eye wash. It is the providing of first aid which causes me so much grief.

My autistic brain finds the unplanned nature of having to deal with medical emergencies so terrifying that I actually feint. Working with the public means I am expected to get training every two years, by my calculations, this means I must have done at least 10 or 12 first aid courses and I never got through one without feinting.

The first time it happened was at high school, our entire year were put on a day long course. Most people got a document saying they had ‘gained a level two certification’, others got level one. My certificate said I had ‘attended a first aid course’.

The bits I can do:

• Putting a colleague into the recovery position, although I am usually told off for rushing, yet none of my colleagues ever seem to mind getting it over with
• Applying bandages to imaginary wounds
• Chest compressions to the rhythm of Staying Alive by the Bee Gees (not a bad song choice for a first aid course, better than Knocking on Heavens Door which is too slow)

The bits I can’t do

• Listen to the instructor talking.

This always makes me start sweating, feel light headed, turn so pale I resemble somebody from the instructional videos and eventually fall to the ground.

At least now I am aware of the pattern, I know when I am no longer able to see straight, I have to get out. I generally hide in the toilets until I think the instructor will have stopped talking and the class will have moved onto something else.

On my most recent course, I pretended to take a ‘very important’ phone call on my mobile, meaning I had to leave the room quickly “I didn’t want to cause a disruption”. I must have been gone for about ten minutes but sadly the veins and arteries chat was still going on so I was forced to pretend to take a second ‘very important’ phone call. Luckily, nobody ever calls me so I was in no danger of the phone going off for real.

It is curious that I am never given a choice about this. Simply having done the training course, does not mean I will be any use in an emergency, there are many examples of me failing to deal with a crisis, my preferred method is hiding and hoping somebody else will turn up, which they (touch wood) have always done.

Despite having missed very significant sections of the course I still passed. However, this morning I learned that because my certificate failed to arrive from the awards body, I will be required to do the course again.

I did the sensible thing and deleted that email. My plan is to pretend I never saw it and hope the manager forgets. Wish me luck.

I was woken up at 6:15am by a text message telling me that the ferry was cancelled again. Because of the storms, I had become stranded in Belfast meaning that I had missed a day of work and couldn’t afford a second day of ‘unauthorised absence’. So with there being no ferries, I had no choice, I would have to fly.

I had sworn never to go back to an airport since I left cruise ships in 2018. One of ways my autism presents itself is an over sensitivity to sound, another is crowds. Airports (being both crowded and noisy) are horrible.

My flight wasn’t until mid afternoon but since the weather was awful (surprise, surprise) and I had my luggage with me, I decided it would be easier to get an early bus. I was very pleased with myself for finding the correct stop and the correct bus without my usual planning and settled in for a nap to pass the 40-minute journey. I woke up to see a peacock staring at me.

The terminal was just as terrible as I expected. Around eight flights were checking in and only two desks were open. As is increasingly normal in departure halls, there were no chairs. I had plenty of time so sat in a café that was closed, until a cleaner told me to leave. The reason, he informed me, that I couldn’t stay there was ‘because of covid’. I didn’t ask any further questions.

One coping mechanism I have developed is finding somewhere quiet. It is rarely difficult to find a quiet space not far away. In the case of Belfast airport, this place was the arrivals terminal (just next door) where I sat in a quiet café for two hours. This (open) café must have had a lower covid risk than the previous (closed) one.

When it was time to check in, the departures hall was even worse than when I left. People and noise everywhere. Another coping mechanism that I have found is headphones playing music which I can regulate and drown out the chanting football fans, yelling hen parties and screaming babies that all wanted to fly at the same time as me. Half an hour later, I was at the front of the queue and my brain was fried. The lady at check in needed my boarding pass, which I didn’t have. By this point, I couldn’t explain and just stared blankly. After what seemed like an eternity, the lady at check in just printed out a boarding pass for me, slapped it on the desk and wordlessly pointed towards departures.

The worst was yet to come. Airport security. The most miserable place imaginable. I am sure there is a policy meaning anyone who smiles here is fired. This is one of the very few places where it is impossible to escape the crowds and the noise. It is also very hard to plan ahead. Will I need to take my shoes off? What about coats? Will laptops need separating? The answers to all these kinds of questions seem to depend on the mood of the officer on duty at the time.

My toothpaste was confiscated. It was a 125ml tube (the maximum is 100ml). The fact it was more than half used didn’t matter. I am still fairly unsure how much of a risk toothpaste is to aircraft security, how many dental cleaning based aviation incidents have there been? I also subscribe to the conspiracy theory that confiscating bottled water is a sneaky way of boosting revenue for the airport – why else is the water so much more expensive on the other side of security? Plus, if it is ok to take baby milk through on condition of tasting, why can’t that apply to all liquids?

Anyway, having to take my headphones off at the last moment makes me very aware of all the noise. The National Autistic Society says people with oversensitivity to sound are likely to experience

• noise can be magnified and sounds become distorted and muddled
• may be able to hear conversations in the distance
• inability to cut out sounds – notably background noise – leading to difficulties concentrating. 

I can strongly relate to all of this and do all I can not to shut down entirely. Luckily, the staff don’t pay me too much attention and my baggage went through the machine without a problem. Upon unpacking the bag, I found a large pair of scissors that I had brought with me (and really shouldn’t have got through). Clearly large scissors are safer than half used tubes of toothpaste.

Once through the other side, I found an empty departure gate away from the football fans, hen parties and howling babies where I could decompress for a while.

Even though it was only a couple of weeks ago, I can’t really remember what happened next. I assume I got the plane and then the train home but my brain had melted. I slept for 16 hours that night and woke up hoping I will never have to go in an airport ever again.