Airport Coat Check

Denise and I are preparing for our long anticipated trip to the islands in early February. This is something that we started two years ago as a way to break out of the winter doldrums here in Baltimore and rejuvenate our minds and bodies in the warm sun. Many other folks will be doing the same thing of course. In every place that feels the cold pinch of winter, people will hop aboard south bound airplanes to escape for awhile.

As Jimmy Buffet so aptly puts it in his song Boat Drinks, “I wanna fly to Saint Somewhere.”

We are all set. We have plane tickets. We have reservations. We have time off work. We have sunscreen. I have an ample supply of my blood pressure meds. It will be perfect, except for one little thing.

When we leave our home in the early morning hours and set off for BWI, it will be probably be cold. In fact, I hope it is cold that morning. It will make us feel all the better about going south in the peak season (and paying peak prices). The only problem is that we will need our coats. We will need coats until we reach the terminal building. Once inside though, we won’t need our coats again for another week. We could, of course, leave them in our car in the airport parking lot but that won’t help much when we return from the sunny warmth to the blistering cold in the dead of night. If we left them in the car we would still freeze as we waited for the parking shuttle bus. It always seems to take forever for those buses to come around, especially when you’re cold. We could also schlep them with us but that seems ridiculous. Who wants to land in a tropical paradise lugging around a wool coat?

The solution is simple. Why don’t cold climate airports offer coat checks for winter travelers?

It is not exactly a new idea. A Google search on airport coat checks turned up just such a service at Dusseldorf International Airport. I wonder why this hasn’t caught on in other cities.

Some Choice

“We are going to move you to either Adventist Hospital or Johns Hopkins to have a cardiac catheterization procedure.”

David Jackson, my cardiologist, had stopped by the ICU on Sunday to check up on me. I told him I was impressed that he showed up on a Sunday. He was even wearing a tie.

“It’s up to you as to where you’d prefer to go.”

I chose Hopkins. The only reason I chose Hopkins was that, having grown up in Baltimore, I always been told that Johns Hopkins was one of the best hospitals in the world. I also believed that they were particularly renowned for their work with heart patients.

I really didn’t know anything about Adventist Hospital.

Some choice, eh?

I mean, here I am, lying in a bed in the ICU unit and being asked to pick a place to have a pretty serious medical procedure performed and I don’t have so much as a brochure to look at. For all I know Adventist Hospital may actually kick Hopkins ass when it comes to this procedure. How about a sales pitch somebody?

Think about it, this procedure probably costs somewhere around 10 grand (I say somewhere because I have had a difficult time getting a handle on the exact costs…more about that in later post) and no one is pitching me on features and benefits. Maybe it is just my background in sales but I’m thinking that this is a big purchase and all I have to go on is what my cardiologist recommends.

Not that this recommendation doesn’t mean anything I just think there should be more. I think that for the money, there should be more of a sales job. Something like “Adventist Hospital has not lost a patient in a cardiac catheterization procedure for the last six months.”

Or, “This week Johns Hopkins is offering an upgraded hospital room for every cardiac catheterization plus a visit by a Ravens cheerleader.”

The heart attack guy could really help these guys with their marketing.