electric mist

fell off the damned planet...

Thank you to so many people who left notes here or e-mailed to see if I had fallen off the planet. Seriously, I had no intention of not being around here for, geez, three months! It's been extremely busy at my house, with craziness aplenty. Including more work than we've ever had, Jake getting injured (multple broken bones in his cheek, then surgery, but he's okay now), lots and lots of travel for said work, travel to a friend's house, then coming home and signing with an agent. (Yup, surprised the hell out of me, too.) The agent has a proposal (three sample chapter, that damned synopsis that drove me nuts but finally was fairly decent, and the script-to-use-as-an-outline.) I have no clue what will happen, but right now, I am supposed to be "hurrying up" and writing the book. So I will be back, sporadically. I'll try for a consistent schedule (like Mondays or Wednesdays or something).

Meanwhile, just to give you a glimpse into one day that I had... I was traveling from Los Alamos, NM back to here, and had a connecting flight in Houston. When I say to you that every single nightmare I had ever had occurred on that one trip, save for crashing (and that was looking pretty likely too, at one point), I'm not kidding. I've flown a decent amount of times and I've always been pretty lucky. Got to the airport on time (well, except for once and that was Carl's fault and I totally had to stand in the doorway of the plane to keep them from taking off without him while he was parking the truck... pre 911, of course.) But in the back of my mind, I would occasionally think of something and think, "Boy, if that happened while I was flying, that would totally suck." Well, apparently, I used up all my good Karma going over to NM because on the way home, it totally bit me in the ass. For example...

... have to drive two hours to the airport only to be nearly sideswiped right at the exit to the airport?... check.

... stand in line at the ticket counter because the computer won't read your printed out e-ticket... and have them say to you that even though it is printed right there and even though they can verify that the bar code is legitimate... you don't actually have a ticket?... check.

... finally get a ticket (thirty minutes later), and go to stand in line for security and realize there are probably more than a thousand people in that line... check.

... then realize that line is the line to get to the line for security... check.

... get yelled at by a complete stranger because she thinks you're "butting in" line when a new line opens up and the attendant had directed you to come forward... check.

... get half-way to the security machines to hear your name called on the loudspeaker... and not be able to hear the "why"... check.

... get back to ticketing (after being sent to the wrong place first) to learn they had accidentally locked your suitcase and now needed the combo because anything locked has to be searched... check.

... go back to security and get the really thorough treatment, since you are obviously now suspicious for having been pulled out of line once... check.

... start your period, and it's a really bad day... check.

... wait in line for something to eat and then discover, once you're well past the restaurant and about to board that it is literally inedible... check.

... board... and sit on the tarmac for over an hour because all flights into Houston are delayed due to a huge storm... check.

... go to the bathroom on the plane and have the door yanked open by a really big guy (because the latch didn't hold)... check.

... squeal (inadvertently) and have half of the back of the plane look straight at you while you're on the toilet because they have nothing else to do... check.

... get into Houston, park at the wrong gate and are told that things "might be a little different" than they'd planned, due to cancellations... check.

... enter a freaking madhouse of thousands of people stranded, confused, non-working computers, long long long lines, being sent to multiple gates at multiple buildings because the computers are all wrong, being told to RUN to the next building because you're boarding in ten minutes, have the tram malfunction five feet from the door to the next building and the tram won't open, spontaneously combust... check.

... finally get out of the tram, run over little old ladies, kids, puppies, everyone, have the NFL offer to sign you up, you're so good at the running over people part, get to the entrance to the gate area which has four or five gates, big round room, and it's literally standing room only... check.

... push past (easily) a thousand people and go up to the front of the counter and ask if you're supposed to be boarding and have the attendant say, "What do you want ME to do about it?" (Um, answer the freaking question?)... check.

... have her laugh when you explain you were told to run because your plane was boarding because not only is it not boarding, there is no plane... check.

... next three flights are cancelled... check.

... finally get on standby, finally get on the plane (last standby called)... told after you are on the plane that the bathroom doesn't work... check.

... sit on tarmac for a while because they are confused... check.

... have the flight attendant announce that they are going to offload 1000 gallons (or pounds, I forget which) of fuel... because that wouldn't scare anyone... check.

... sit for another thirty minutes... taxi around... and taxi... and taxi... (secretly wonder if they plan on just driving the plane from Houston to Baton Rouge)... and all the while, there is an awful whining noise and one of the men in the back where you're sitting says, "You know, that sounds like a fuel pump that isn't engaging." ... check.

... look out his window... his prop engine is working... look out yours... and yours isn't... check.

... have a technician board the plane, enter the cockpit and plug something in... check.

... call your husband and say, "Seriously, we're taking bets in the back here... I have that the wheels will fall off, so if that happens, you tell the airline they owe you big."... check.

... fly into BR and learn that you're flying into the storm that had caused the chaos in Houston... check.

... finally get to the luggage carousel, all fifty of you, and watch the luggage go around, and around, and around... and no one's picking anything up... because none of it it's our luggage and there is no more luggage being off-loaded... check.

... leave and realize that the taco you have on the way home is the first real food you've been able to eat all day (because the lines at the airport were horrendous)... check.

The only good part was that they found the luggage and miraculously, delivered it early the next morning to my back door, which is fairly amazing, since I live a fair distance from the airport. But I'm hoping, crossing fingers and knocking on wood, that I've now had my share of bad-flying-events and can count on the next few flights being relatively stress-free. (One can always hope.)

Posted by toni at April 25, 2005 09:18 PM