Following the rules.

Ahhh, the joys of being a world-traveling musician. The weeks of telling our friends that ourn ext ‘big’ gig involves a passport and a flight across an ocean, the actual experience of foreign cultures, food, and languages, the shows in front of legions of adoring fans who are thrilled to be seeing actual AMERICAN musicians. And after the gig si done, taking to the streets with the other guys in the band, going from restaurant to bar to club like a dangerously cool human wolf pack, people staring and pointing and wishing that they too could be as free and as bad ass as we are.

But every coin has two sides. Feeling about as sharp as a pile of bricks because jet-lag always gets the upper hand, schlepping and schlepping, to and fro, back and forth, hotel to gig and back, having to play an extra set that you just didn’t have quite enough material for because even though the contract only called for three sets, the promoter (who until this moment had been the most up-tight, officious, rule-following, bureaucratic person ever) told you that he needed you to be ‘flexible’. Finally, and most annoyingly, being charged a baggage overage fee to bring your instrument on the plane.

The entirety of the scenarios outlined above has been my life for the past three days, and as I sit in the Zurich airport waiting to board my plane to Amsterdam (where I am thrilled to be spending some time with a dear friend and his family), I feel compelled to rant about the overage fee that I narrowly avoided.

To properly understand the miracle that I was just made a party to, you first have to understand one thing about Swiss culture: more than anything else, the Swiss people are driven by rules. This means that their watches are the most precise I the world, that their trains run on time, and that you will buy a tram ticket to go downtown, even if there is no one to check it. This nearly-manical adherence to rulesalso means that you won’t get a breat. Our driver, Ernie- poor guy – lived in a mild state of terror, because as he put it, “My boss will kill me if I’m a minute late.” So, here in Switzerland, there is a way things are and that’s it. It’s simply not possible to change things once the rules have been set.

The band I was with in Zurich all flew back to Nashville today on a flight that left about five hours before my flight to Amsterdam. So, this morning, I remained at the hotel for an extra couple hours of sleep, then I got up and took the extremely efficient public transportation system to the airport with my suitcase, my backpack, and my electric bass. I’ve flown extensively with my bass and in the years that I’ve been traveling with it have only been forced to check it one time. (Delta airlines forced me to gate-check it like a baby stroller, and it was returned to me unscathed when we landed. But, I still won’t fly on Delta.)

When I arrived at the airport, everything went smoothly until the girl at the check-in counter saw my bass. She immediately became flustered and got very tight lipped and asked me to place all my luggage (including my backpack and bass) on the scale. When she read the weight, she asked me to come with her to the end of the counter where we needed to talk to the manager. The manager (actually there were two of them, ostensibly to make double-sure that all the rules were followed) informed me that I was overweight. I let that comment go and assumed that as a non-native English speaker what she meant to say was that my luggage was overweight. She also informed me that I had to pay some overage fees and that I would have to check my instrument. I managed to make an argument based on the fact that as a professional musician I had rules too and that my rules were to never check my instrument, she agreed to give me a gate-check ticket for the bass. But she still wanted to charge me an overage of 9 kilograms. I was fully prepared to part with an additional $25 or even maybe $50 for the right to carry my bass with me and that’s when she said that my overage fee would be 180 Swiss Francs (or approximately $200)! I told her that this was more than my plane ticket had cost (true) and that I had never had to pay such a fee (true) and furthermore that in all my years of travel I had never had to check my bass (almost true - except for that Delta thing). “Well,” she said, “we allow you 20 Kilos of luggage and 8 Kilos of carryon and you are 10 Kilos over that, but I’m only charging you for 9 extra Kilos.” “Yes, yes.” said the second manager. Shocked, and more than a little furious, I attempted to reason with her. But as I’ve mentioned, here in Switzerland rules are rules and she sent me further down the counter to the cashier.

When I got my turn with the cashier, she asked me how I was doing and I told her that I was not doing well. I went on to explain my luggage situation and that I was being charged more than the cost of my plane ticket to bring my bass with me. She told me something about how plane ticket prices are dropping and that the airlines are doing what they can to stay aloft. I told her that I didn’t care, I felt screwed, and could I please have the address where I could send a complaint letter, which she promptly produced for me.

This is where the miracle started to happen. With a deep breath, and a long look at my face, the cashier told me that she could try one thing, that it usually didn’t work, but that she understood my pain and would try to help me out. I followed her back to the managers and stood there, with as polite of a facial expression as I could muster while she rattled on to the managers in Swiss-German. Perhaps it was an alignment of the planets, perhaps the managers had just received some good news, or perhaps my polite facial expression had the desired effect. Whatever it was, the cashier managed to convince the managers to give me an upgrade to a business class ticket which comes with an extra 10 kilos of luggage allowance. They promptly printed my boarding pass and sent me on my way.

“Thank you so much.” I said.

“You’re welcome,” said the cashier and manager number one.

“Yes, yes,” said manager number two.

And off I walked to find a place to sit and write the words you have just read.