Flotsam and jetsam are maritime terms that refer to different types of debris found floating in the ocean or washed up on shores, though they’re often used together colloquially to mean “odds and ends” or “miscellaneous items,” and especially things that have no control over their provenance and at at the mercy of fate. Flotsam refers to wreckage or cargo that floats on the water after a ship has sunk or been wrecked. It comes from the Old French word “floter,” meaning “to float.” Jetsam refers to cargo or equipment that has been deliberately thrown overboard from a ship, typically to lighten the vessel during an emergency. It derives from “jettison.” There’s also lagan (or ligan) – goods lying on the sea bottom that are buoyant enough to be recovered, often marked with a buoy. In maritime law, these distinctions matter for determining ownership and salvage rights. Flotsam typically belongs to the original owner if they can prove ownership, while jetsam may have different legal implications since it was intentionally discarded. Determining exactly what is flotsam and what is jetsam (and perhaps even what has become lagan) is certainly a challenging delineation given that accurate recordkeeping in the times of a catastrophic disaster like a shipwreck are far from perfect…or even available at all.
The phrase “flotsam and jetsam” has evolved in everyday language to describe miscellaneous debris, random objects, or people who seem to drift without purpose – essentially anything that appears to be floating around without a clear destination or value. I am choosing to extend this definition to people who have been cast overboard for the greater good, like players in the play Lifeboat or the parlor game by the same name. That scenario is where the boat crew, whether officially members of the larger vessel in distress or the impromptu crew of the newly launched rescue vessel, are forced to make a decision about who is least worthy of remaining in the lifeboat and retaining their position in the hierarchy as the craft founders in the peril of the raging seas. The set-up is one where all occupants of the lifeboat are “in play” and must be deemed worthy to keep them from being tossed overboard. This is a version of the greater-good ethical conundrum where one must debate the merits of salvation for the group versus the human rights of the individual. Society has played this game over and over again since time began, the common elements being untoward conditions and a diverse universe of participants with varying worth or relevance to the group. Something instigates a dilemma and need to choose the outlier and someone must guide the process to adjudicate the societal norms in play. Sometimes it’s random and sometimes there is a rubric for deciding the outcome.
When I travel, I try to go with the flow. Since the rise of terrorism and general increase in travelers, it seems necessary to add an extra layer of tolerance to our mantra as we navigate the airports and roadways of the world. We all want to stand up for ourselves against the injustices of travel, but we have all seen too many YouTube videos or the man who goes batshit on a plane and gets hauled off by the air marshalls to some facelessly drab interior interview room with a flickering light bulb and a bucket of water in the corner. The epilogue is always the same….”this man has had his global flight privileges rescinded permanently and is forever grounded…” We don’t want any part of that program, so we bite our tongues and put on our bravest and calmest demeanor, what I call “going into airport mode”, such that nothing disturbs our peace and we are delivered from the temptation of acting badly. Make no mistake, the airlines are fully aware of this phenomenon and, over time, they have become convinced that they can pretty much do anything to us travelers as we bob along the surface as the flotsam and jetsam of the travel world.
I have been mildly dreading this day for a few weeks since i learned that I would have to fly to NYC for a deposition rather than doing it by Zoom. Clearly, our opponents in this trial are less concerned about the texture of face-to-face human interaction than they are about screwing with the opposition and making their lives as miserable as possible. I don’t think this ire is directed at me specifically, but rather the plaintiff, who they know has to pay my way. I am merely the instrument of their annoyance and to them I am detritus adrift in the process. At least there are direct flights to New York from San Diego, but the wear and tear of ten hours of flight time, five hours of airport time, four hours of transit time, hotel check in/out and God knows how much sitting around time, all for a four to five hour deposition that serves minimal litigatory purpose, makes you feel more like a piece of baloney than a valued professional. Ah well, just get on with it and slide into that airport mode I mentioned.
I spent yesterday treating it like a pre-travel day with minimal activity and plans for an early night. When I woke at 12:45, due mostly to my circadian adjustment I was attempting, I checked my texts for an abundance of caution and found that my flight due to depart in less than 6 hours was inexplicably cancelled. They were nice enough to tell me that they booked me on an alternative flight that I could look up by clicking through. Their offer to give me a full refund meant nothing given my circumstances. Once you click through and start maneuvering the airline website, you find yourself wide awake with travel adrenaline starting to course through your system. I had been rebooked on a 6:15 flight to Atlanta, which was to be followed by a flight to JFK after a short layover. I’m not sure what FAA or IAPPA standards are for middle of the night rebooking to earlier flights are, but there must be some protocol that a fifteen minute change qualifies for. I quickly checked the seat selection availability and was relieved that each leg of this new flight (SAN to ATL and ATL to had one first class seat available and waiting for me, not in the spots I would have preferred, but at least on the aisles. The arrival and departure gates in ATL were also very close which made me happy since I have exhausted myself one too many times in ATL trying to get from one flight to another. At least that was the case until right before boarding, whereupon the arrival gate changed to a concourse two away from my next departure gate. Damn,,,
We departed SAN more or less on time, so all seemed well, but when we landed in ATL I immediately saw that my JFK flight was delayed an indefinite amount of time. The airline was emailing and texting me notices about weather warning for the Northeast and how it may cause delays. Just as I settled into a cafe for a calm lunch, they posted a departure time only ten minutes later than the scheduled time. Luckily I was close-by, so that leisurely lunch got truncated. After waiting for an inordinate number of wheelchairs, walking disabled and families with kids and dogs (one little guy barking his head off), I finally boarded only to have the gate agent hold me up and hand me a ticket showing that my seat had been randomly changed by the airline to the farthest back window seat. While standing in the plane doorway, waiting for the disabled to adjust themselves to the plane, I asked the attendant about the seat change. He smiled at me and just said…”they can do whatever they want to you and there’s nothing you can do about it.” I thought that about said it all about my world today. I went to my newly assigned seat and wedged myself in for the duration and that’s when the concept of flotsam & jetsam came to mind.