Fellow flying follies

Hello fans and friends,

Sorry it's been awhile since my last post.  I have been alerted on several occasions by many of you that I have not blogged in awhile so it seems as though some of you think I am overdue and in fact, I AM!  I have several blogs in the "hopper" so to speak.  Should I write the Truman CMDS Triumphant "Quest for the Cup" blog, the grandmother passing away experience blog, the trip to Mexico with the students  blog or the nutty e-mail exchanges between my self-dessert named colleagues and myself entry?  These are all memories sitting in the midst of my cerebral gray matter waiting to explode onto the computer screen yet they will need to remain in short term(?) storage for now because I just HAVE to write another airplane related entry. I can't help it.  Sometimes my need to write these things down is akin to a bodily function of some kind.  (Including but not limited to child birth).  I just FEEL BETTER once I get it out!!

As I write this I am sitting on  an aircraft heading to Kansas City from a meeting in Maryland at our national professional association office.  The meeting I was just at involved a group of peers who are interested in supervision and administration of speech-language pathologists.  In an attempt to not bore you with mind numbing professional jargon I will leave it at that.

It was a short meeting.....only 1.5 days which as meetings go, is quite the sprint.   My friend Mark was also at this meeting who much to my dismay will rotate off the group at the end of this year.  I met Mark while we were both students in the inaugural class of a national association leadership development program.  (In retrospect the mere idea that they let both Mark and I INTO a "leadership" program is a hoot) I like Mark a LOT as he speaks my native language which is sarcasm.  I also like Mark because he spent our leadership conference time with me together in a national association van making fun of and in fact BREAKING most of the laminated "rules" for driving the coveted "association" vehicle.  The "rules" in and of themselves would make for another excellent blog topic but what with my aging relatives passing on, chaperoning young adults to 2nd world countries and incessant e-mail exchanges from my hysterical colleagues I'm all stocked up on topics at the moment.

At the end of the meeting Mark wanted to print his boarding pass back to his metropolitan university destination before we left the national office so he logged on to the airline website where he discovered his seat was located in row 41 which we took to mean in the rear aircraft restroom next to the crew's jump seats.   After mulling over the perks of having ready access to the rolling bar cart back there, he decided that since he has access to the hoity toity airline "club" at the airport he could do his reduced cost imbibing while there and chose to locate to another available seat further up.  Lucky for him there WAS an open seat.......in the emergency exit row.

Now from my experience with other human flyers I have learned that the are two general schools of thought on this particular seat location.  You either love it (for the extra leg room allowing you to sit in the civilized fashion of having your legs crossed WITHOUT your toe resting in your seat-mate's crotch) OR you hate this location  because you are not allowed to stow your carry-on crap in this space which is large enough to house a St. Bernard's training crate AND there is no handy fold down tray table to rest ever-so-stylishly on your belt buckle. Mark was just happy that he was now out of the toilet and opted to take the seat.  He did so that is, after he had a witness attest to the fact that he could in all good conscience sign the online waiver which consisted of the following statements:

1. "Mark must be physically able to open an exit door and lift and stow a 31-52 lb window exit." (Who knew these things varied in weight?) Mark is in very good shape, runs every day and "eats right" (you know, when not drinking.......so check)

2.  "Mark must be able to quickly activate the evacuation slide and help others off to it." (Being a non-smoker, Mark has excellent lung capacity and in the event that the slide should need to be blown up using a crazy straw he could amply perform this task.....check)

3.  "Mark cannot be traveling with a child restraint seat."  (Mark's son was not on this trip and regardless is a junior in high school and of normal height anyway so.........check.)

4.  "Mark cannot be traveling with a pet in the cabin of the aircraft."  ("Shit, there went droolow the St. Bernard.")   Check

5.  "Mark must not require the use of a seat belt extender DUE TO THE HAZARD OF ENTANGLEMENT". And THIS my friends and fans is where we completely lost it.

I mean seriously, can you just hear the announcement on the flight intercom????  "Ladies and gentlemen, the plane is crashing but please mind your step over Mark's fatty seat belt extender.  We would hate to have you trip and sue us on your way out to the blow up slide after the crash."  Seriously, I have not stopped laughing over the danger of "entanglement" from the what must be the MILE of seat belt extender that some folks must need.  (But not Mark so check)

This caused my friend Melanie to subsequently share her worst ever in-flight story.  Melanie's  friend was traveling alone somewhere when a man with NO LEGS and ONE ARM came scooting down the center aisle on a skateboard.  He hoisted himself WITH HIS ONE ARM into the seat next to her friend and sat SIDEWAYS  with his nose to her shoulder FACING her.  (It seems you can sit this way when you have no legs and STILL do not need a seat belt extender.)  The subtle sick comedy of this scene soon turned horrific when the man began to mutter under his breath into her shoulder that he was going to stab her with a knife.......a statement he felt compelled to make over and over across the United States air space.  It seems among other tragedies that had befallen this man in life, he was also plagued with TOURETTE'S SYNDROME and the knife stabbing statement appeared to be his consistent phrase of choice. People, I CANNOT make this stuff up.

Melaine's knife story reminded Mark of a return flight he took from Taipei some time back.  It seems in many third world countries, airline security is rather LOWWWW on the priority list.  Once airborne the oriental woman sitting next to him who BTW, spoke ZERO English dug into her carry-on and pulled out a sword-sized machete from its protective cover and began to HACK INTO an apple on her pull down tray table.  "Hack into" being akin to  hacking off the head of a chicken which for all Mark knew was the next thing to be pulled from her bag.  Again, can't make this shit up.  She non verbally offered Mark some of her newly slaughtered treasure to which he politely declined with a non verbal pitcher's cue of shaking off the next pitch complete with a set of saucer sized pupils.

As I finish this entry I find myself on what I like to call the "wind up plane" headed back to my corn field surrounded institution of higher learning in Missouri. We boarded the plane from OUTSIDE the terminal using a step stool and I swear we took off from someone's drive way.  The wings on this sucker are no higher off the ground than the low dive at our town pool.  Seriously, my kids could climb up there WITHOUT a ladder and cannon-ball off. The ceiling of the walkway in the center aisle of this plane is SO LOW that to walk down the middle you have cock your head to one side. The surface area of the overhead bins is only slightly smaller than the glove compartment in my van.  I guess if I wanted to I could store my I-phone and ball point pen up there.  Maybe squeeze my glasses in if I'm lucky.  The pilot himself seems to be seated in row A and carried on a 12 pack case of water bottles for "Gary" our ONE flight attendant to serve to my thirsty plane friends when we comfortably reached our cruising altitude.  The announcement before take off simply said, "Gary we're ready to go so sit down."

I am sitting in a row of single seats on the left hand side of the plane kind of like a seated Catholic communion line only we don't advance forward.  The monitor in the terminal before take off (which BTW WAS DELAYED because they were missing a crew member????  Yeah, whose day was it to watch THAT guy??) said that the flight would be 2 hours and 47 minutes.  However when we boarded, our captain up in row A told us we were running 2 hours and 18 minutes wheels up to wheels down.  Seriously?  How does THAT happen?  Are we speeding??? Is this allowed?? It feels like it anyway as we bump and weave along at our cruising altitude which for a long while has been the height level of most flag poles and fruit bearing trees.  ("Look, there went a healthy looking lemon.") If you have read me in the past, you know that "I don't fly."  I DO eat gummy bears though which are my answer to most of life's pressing or terrifying issues including flying passage on the Barbie plane. 

Gummy bears with several Xanax chasers that is. Let's just say due to my less than intense love of flying I have already taken FOUR Xanax from a bottle that says take ONE tablet three times a day as needed for anxiety.  What the hell.......I may eat Xanax like tick tacks but at least I don't (YET) need a seat belt extender endangering other passengers with my possible "entanglement" issues!  

The pilot in row A just told us to fasten our seat belts TIGHT which honestly is NOT what this already stoned passenger needs to hear.  I see Xanax # 5 being ingested soon!!!  Signing off for now from some thousand feet.........and chanting hundreds of silent "Hail Marys."  The pilot just apologized for the bumps and said something else completely unintelligible.  I hope it wasn't something I might need to know because Gary is already buckled back up in his jump seat.......and I just dropped a Xanax stuck to a gummy bear down my cleavage.