Right Place, Wrong Place

I've written before that we host people on AirBnB as a way to help us feel connected to the travel community. We still go places but not nearly as often as we did in Europe, so it's fun to have people come and go from all different walks of life. As you might expect, we meet some interesting people. We also meet some strange ones. An experience last week, however, was an entirely new thing for us.

We had a guest who had booked a stay with us for Monday night. We'll call him Dave. Dave was a pilot and was coming to town for an interview. Dave booked our room and sent us messages about what time he expected to come and go during his stay.

He was to arrive in the afternoon on Monday and I was off work, so I had him call when his flight landed in case I wasn't home. As luck would have it I was leaving home right as he called so I offered to pick him up (our house is about three miles from the airport) because I'm a superhost/was incredibly bored.

Dave told me that he was flying on United, so I took a loop through the arrivals area and didn't see him by the United sign. I was wrong, he must have said American. I didn't see him there either, so I did another loop.

Same results.

I called Dave again and said "Hey, I didn't see you at either one of those. I'm pulling up again in about 90 seconds. You're sure you're at United?" He said "Yep. And I'm in a pilot uniform."

I also asked him if he was on the bottom-level where the arrivals were instead of the top-level where the departures were. He assured me that he was on the lower level. I trusted him.

I may occasionally be absent-minded, but there was no way I missed someone in a pilot's uniform standing outside. I kept him on the phone and pulled up again, talking my way through where I was and where I was not seeing him. Eventually I pulled up against the curb in front of the car-rental buses and said "Do you see the car rental shuttle-buses?" He told me he had walked back inside to confirm where the car-rental signs were pointing and was walking back outside right now. I had gotten out of the car and was standing on the sidewalk, figuring I'd see him any moment.

I didn't.

"Hey Dave? You are in Cleveland, right?"

"What? I'm in Cincinnati. CVG airport."

Come on. It turned out that Dave had somehow seen our AirBnB listing (which says "Cleveland" in the title) on the map, thinking it was only a block or two from where his interview was taking place...in Cincinnati. He had then messaged us saying "I'll be coming into Cleveland on Monday afternoon and leaving early Tuesday morning." He then reiterated that point when I tried to confirm what time he would arrive.

Then he went to the wrong city.

I'm sure he's a great pilot though.