365 Things to Smile About Day 323. Mosh Pit at the Airport!!!

I have heard many things about the Orlando airport.  It's rather infamous!  When I landed there I was more frustrated at having a hard time finding ground transportation for hotels.  But when I got there to fly out Sunday morning.....I was not prepared for the insanity!  The numbers of people was insane!!

Then when I got to the security area I had to take a step back!  The best way to describe what was before me was a crushing mosh pit of people milling forward in no discernible line or pattern!  I stood there wondering how on earth I was going to navigate this!  When I am in an airport, especially a busy one, I use my white cane.  I practice with it still whenever I can but I also use it in large crowds as my eyes can't handle the swirling of people like what was in front of me and just go a little bat crazy and then say "Nope!" and refuse to process the information in front of me.  This was one of those moments!  But even with cane in hand...short of just walking through the crowd and elbowing people like I was seeing happen...I didn't know how to proceed for a minute!

As I stood there considering what to do, a very kind TSA agent walked up to me, asked if he could help me and offered me his elbow!!!  My O & M heart was so happy!  This was the first TSA agent I had ever meant who even had a clue about how to offer assistance to someone traveling with a white cane!!  I gladly took ahold of his elbow, closed my ever increasingly shaking eyes and stepped forward.  While the crowd didn't melt away like something from a movie, the blue uniform of the TSA agent had enough effect that people stepped aside or shifted enough for us to get by.  he gave wonderful directions of where he was going and when the area was narrowing down and it was such a joy to not feel the panic of too many people around me rise up and over whelm me!  I had a nice talk with him after going through security (where sadly another TSA agent tried to literally pull me through the metal detector!) and he told me about the general training he went through for assisting anyone who might need help...including someone who was blind or has low vision!

So while I am not looking forward to traveling through that airport any time soon I have to give a shout out to the Orlando TSA for taking the time to make sure they had some agents who knew what they were doing!!!