The Unfriendly Skies

Is there anything worse than flying? 

Yeah, yeah, I know, cancer, AIDS, world  hunger...but you should know by now that this is a superficial blog.  Please see Julie's cancer-curing friend's blog if you want something with a little bit of substance.  http://www.leclercqfamily.blogspot.com/ 

Now back to fluff.

Flying plain sucks (pun intended).  PERIOD.

Not only am I CONVINCED that I'm going to die each and every time I get within 24 hours of flying (there's simply not enought Xanax in the world), inevitably, at some point during the journey, I wish that God would just go ahead and put me out of my misery.  

I know.  Everyone has a story.  This is just the first time that I have had a forum. 

For those of you that have ever had the "pleasure" of flying out of the Shreveport airport, go ahead and skip to the end of this post, as there's no need for you to read on.  YOU KNOW.   You probably also got the full body cavity search because you had a lip gloss over 4 oz in your bag.

After arriving at SHV, which a much more appropo airport code would be SHIT, we learned that our old broken down horse, I mean plane, couldn't make it to Shreveport.  And, they really weren't sure when the next one would arrive.

Today?  Tomorrow?  Christmas?

Why oh why don't they make an extra large US Weekly?

So, if I want to see my sister who lives in New York, I should just sit in the airport, close my eyes, and wish really, really hard for the next death tube loaded stock full 'o' smelly people to arrive sometime in the next 24 to 48?

And, I shouldn't try to get on another connecting flight, because it may, actually, never connect?

"Now would you all stand for the National Anthem?"

WTF????!!!!

I consider myself a patriot.  I get misty eyed every time Mariah Carey even thinks about the rocket's red glare.  BUT, I do not want to get chastised by the Delta Airlines desk worker for not standing and singing the National Anthem in the Shreveport airport every hour that it's looped on the sound system throughout the airport.  Especially when I've been sitting there for four hours.

After a five hour delay, we set sail for the Hamptons (pronounced the huummmmtunnns).

We had a lovely stay.

On the flip side, we got up at the crack of dawn to take the train to the tram to the airport.  Bart and I couldn't sit together on the plane, and I made fun of him, because he had a middle seat and I had a window.

 I pretended not to know Bart when I left him at the front of the plane, where he was unsuccessfully trying to shove his luggage into the overhead compartment, while simultaneously sweating profusely and cussing even more profusely.  I walked the plank to the back of the death tube, when I realized that someone had the nerve to be sitting in my window seat.

I double checked my ticket, then knowingly showed it to the flight attendant.  She tried to tell the man in my seat that he was, in fact, in the wrong seat; however, his English wasn't great.  Finally, she asked me if I would just sit in the aisle.

Ha!  You're joking, right?

She asked me several more times.

What, does she think that I, also, don't have a proper grasp of the English language?  Each time she asked, I clearly told her loudly and slowly, that I wanted to sit in the widown seat, because I get airsick, don't like to get up multiple times so people can pee when I can just hold it, and that frankly, I don't really like to pee in the death tube's sorry excuse for a bathroom, and that just because the man couldn't speak English, he could move...when she finally interrupted me.

"Honey, he's handicapped, would you please just sit in the middle seat." 

Since when does broken English qualify as a handicap? 

Ooooooh.

I didn't even notice that the man in my window seat was not only foreign, but was blind and had a cane.

Wow, I pretty much suck as a person, and am definitely going to die in a firey plane crash today. 

But, then it crossed my mind that if he's blind and needs a cane, wouldn't the window seat be lost on him?  And wouldn't he actually do better in the aisle seat in case he needed to get up?

I decided to just keep my mouth shut and sit in the middle.

Until, the girl sitting behind me touched my arm with her bare, tattooed foot.  Can you just take a minute to let that sink in?  Okay.  My arm was on the arm rest, minding its own business, when the girl  in the row behind me had the nerve to rest her toe cheese on my arm.  I looked at her foot in horror for several seconds before I could even figure out what to say.  I mean, clearly, she would be embarrassed if she was cognizant of the fact that her tribal art toes were touching a strangers arm, right?

I turned around and gave my best Tyra Banks "communication with the eyes."  However, when her foot was still resting on my elbo, I knew it was time to get verbal.

"Excuse me, but your foot is touching my arm."

Apparently, this is not the right thing to say to a heavily tatted 20-something.

She yelled at me.  Yelled.  At.  Me.  Because her foot was touching my arm from the row behind me!!  Oh my God, is this how I'm going to die on this flight?  Please, no.

I almost pushed the flight attendant call button, but quickly recalled that the flight attendant already thinks I'm a crazy bitch.

Shit.

Tattoo and her equally tattooed friend taunted me the whole way from JFK to Atlanta, while I pretended to ignore them.  And clearly, the blind foreign guy wasn't going to come to my rescue, so, not only was flight 1276 from JFK to Atlanta an airplane ride, but also a time machine that took me back to the seventh grade.

After my middle seat and middle school trip from New York to Atlanta, I pleasently read my book in the ATL airport while waiting for my flight to Shreveport.  We boarded the plane on time,  taxied down the runway, and prepared for take-off.  Then the AC went out.

Yep, back to the gate, time to de-plane, and wait for them to fix the AC. 

A few hours later, we re-boarded the plane.  As I was putting my luggage into the overhead compartment, the female pilot, who was standing in the middle of the plane, opened the overhead compartment and let out an ear piercing SCREAM. 

I knew it!  There was no AC problem.  It was a bomb.  We are all going to die!!!!!!!!!

A quick situational assessment determined that it was a grosshopper and not a bomb.  Okay, we aren't going to die.  Yet.  

However, female pilot then smacked the grasshopper, and flung it onto a man sitting in the row behind us.

Man screamed, and reached to fling it off of his shirt.

I was standing in the aisle, and saw what was coming next, but before I could react, Man smacked that grasshopper straight into my face.  I screamed bloody murder.  My husband peed his pants. 

Thankfully, a guy finally had the wherewithall to catch the grasshopper in his hands and throw it out of the plane. 

Damn you Bin-Laden.  This is all your fault.