Come Fly With Me
On Sunday, Daisy and I left for the airport around 12:30 because there was a parade right by our hotel (I mean really, why wouldn’t there be a parade?) and we needed to give ourselves a good cushion of time to get to JFK to catch our flights.
After that morning’s brunch cab ride from hell, where I’m 100% certain that the driver was racing an imaginary second car, one that probably contained my life expectancy, I was weary of getting into another cab ever again, let alone a few hours later. To my delight and surprise, with the one exception of the driver feeling a compulsive need to check his cell phone every 6.4 seconds (I mean really, who is that addicted to their phone…), the ride was unremarkable.
When I got to my terminal I tried to print out my boarding ticket before someone could offer me help, because when you get right down to it, I’m a 3 year old. And help is the devil. Eventually the woman who insisted on helping me informed me that I was inserting my credit card in backwards and that might be why I couldn’t get the damn ticket to print.
I waited in a terminal that had a bird randomly flying around and with a bajillion people who think it’s appropriate to take up extra seats with their feet, until my zone was called and I boarded the plane.
The plane pulled away from the gate exactly on time. It was an aviary miracle.
And then we plunged into darkness. Really hot, stuffy, darkness.
Because the power failed.
Yea. I really wanted to be on that plane longer. I can think of nothing I’d rather do than fly for 6 hours on a plane that intermittently loses power. That doesn’t seem like it would be a problem at all.
They got the power started, explained that it wasn’t really the POWER power that went out, but just the auxiliary power, which only controlled silly stuff like air flow and lights and the toilets. Which we could totally live without for 6 hours. Eventually, they convinced me not to run off the plane screaming that the phalanges were broken and we got 35,000 feet up in the air.
To horrific turbulence. The kind where you think, oh, well this can’t last. Surely the pilot can find a different altitude to avoid this. And then the pilot comes on and says, um, yea, no, I can’t do anything for you. And it’ll last for about the next 20 minutes.
And apparently in pilotville, 20 minutes is the same as 2 hours.
The air and my mind both eventually calmed and we prepared to land at LAX. And I thought, huh, we seem really high up still, and hey, that’s the runway below us. Seems like we should be descending a bit more.
And then the right wheel hit. The left wheel did not.
And then the plane jerked to the left and the left wheel hit while the right wheel lifted back up again. And then we teeter-tottered until the plane nearly careened off the runway.
When we all started breathing again, the pilot buzzed in and apologized because that wasn’t really his best showing of skills. Which is weird, because it was totally the best showing of my ability to scream like a little girl. A little girl with a really serious swearing problem.
Needless to say, I’m walking to Canada this weekend.
17 Responses to “Come Fly With Me”
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Welcome! I'm Katie, a 28 year old, full-time graduate student who just happened to have brain surgery in November of 2007 to give my ginormous brain a little more space. This blog chronicles my daily life, from relentless headaches to being a doctor's wife. Sit down, get comfortable and stay for a while.
You can’t fly without phalanges.
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Katie Reply:
August 10th, 2010 at 9:30 pm
@Daisy, THIS PLANE DOESN’T EVEN HAVE ANY PHALANGES.
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Excuse me, I’m getting off, THIS PLANE DOESN’T HAVE PHALANGES!
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How horrible! Maybe it’s a good thing you have to fly again so soon. Ya know, get back on the horse and all.
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Yikes! You’re making it sound like it was a good thing I didn’t fly to BlogHer, opting to stay home for the conference my university hosted.
Perhaps next year, you can convince them to hold BlogHer somewhere within driving distance?
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Just as an aside, the Crash Test Dummies are the only Rock and Roll band I know of to use the word, phalanges, in an ass kicking song. You should Google it.
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Stephen Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 12:02 am
@Stephen, ok, i forgot a comma
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Katie Reply:
August 11th, 2010 at 6:31 am
@Stephen, The phalanges here are a reference to an episode of Friends. Well, a few episodes really.
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Holy shit this is hilarious. But only because I was not on the plane with you. If I had been, it would not have been funny AT ALL.
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I love you for the Phoebe reference. (Phalanges!)
Also? That flight sounds beyond horrible. I would seriously consider Amtrak from now on if I were you.
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Do you think Regina Phalange is the inventor of the airplane phalanges? (Much like John Blackbox probably invented the blackbox.)
Also OMG. That sounds horrific.
At least your pilot talked to you though. When they don’t bother to mention the turbulence I always a) feel like a huge wuss for gripping my seat so tightly or b) wonder if they are working so hard at keeping the plane in the air they don’t have time to reassure us or c) decide that the pilots have simply bailed out of the cockpit and left us to fend for ourselves.
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This would have sucked SOOO bad, but you made a great and hilarious story out of it!
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You had all kinds of flight/cab issues last weekend. Hoping this weekend is better.
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OMFG. How awful & scary! Glad all was okay in the end.
For a split second I thought we were going to need a different plane for my flight from LGA to Kansas City, and I about had a panic attack. But they only had to restart the plane and I felt like a big overreacting baby.
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It’s never a good day when your pilot APOLOGIZES to you.
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Oh my god. I would have shit all over the plane. I’m so sorry. Glad you’re home safe. XOXO
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Sorry you had such a bad flight, but it made me laugh. A LOT. Maybe you should check to make sure THAT pilot doesn’t do flights to Canada. Or just take a train.
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