folks, you got some readin to do tonight. I didn't want to make the flight a two parter, and well, guess I bit off more than I could chew.
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November 28
Departure day.
I'm not sure what was the matter with me, but I was all screwed up, dazed and confused.
My main problem it seemed was just being really, really, groggy, I just felt out of it.
I don't remember the ride to the airport, nor checking the bags or even going through security. It was like I came to
on the connecting walkway tunnel that leads into the airplane.
I looked down and at least I still had my carry-on so I must have been doing something right.
At the entrance to the plane itself, I was met by a young flight attendant with a rather waxy looking face, wearing one of those smiles that you just knew she would have till she got off the plane.
What I didn't care for was the one line she said to me as I passed by her:
"Room for one more, honey."
Most people wouldn't know or remember that this line came from a Twilight Zone episode about a doomed airline flight.
But I remembered, and I thought it was a pretty nasty way to greet folks getting on the plane.
I had to think what flight number this was,,,, Oh yeah, 716, seemed like a safe enough number unlike the one time we had to come back on flight 451, the same number from a Ray Bradbury science fiction novel so it wouldn't have surprised me to be told this was flight 666 or something on that order.
I walked down the aisle to row 11, seats A and B. On this type of air craft I always choose the side with only two seats, Diane prefers the aisle seat for her claustrophobia and I would prefer my couch seat in front of the tv but that wasn't an option here, so I always take the window seat and keep my face pressed to the window for just about the entire flight to also avoid claustro.
After stowing my bag on top, I noticed that I seem to be the only one boarding so far and that didn't seem right.
I slid over to the window, buckled my seat best to get it over with and already pressed my face to the window.
Then it dawned on me, where's Smidgy? Just then I felt her sit down next to me so I continued looking out the window, until I realized something was really wrong.
It's a 7 o'clock flight, sunrise is at 6:45 which means it shojld now be light outside, only it was still pitch black. I did my best to rationalize this, maybe we're still in a hanger? Garage? Really dark sunscreen tinted glass on the windows? But no, I could see some twinkling lights in the distance. Just then a voice from right next to me said,
"So, did you miss me, squirt?"
Knowing that voice I spun around and instead of finding Diane sitting next to me was my sister instead.
"Lynn!"
My sister Lynn was there, smiling at me, looking terrific.
This would have been terrific news since I haven't seen her in 12 years now, but since the reason it's been that long is because that's how long she's been dead, no, not really.
She passed away suddenly then, but I still really wanted to talk to her until I looked around the plane.
All the other passengers were crash test dummies, all buckled in, staring straight ahead and Lynn broke the silence again. "Won't be long now, Brudder, then we'll have lots of time to catch up on things."
As wrong as all this was, part of it seemed to make sense so I told her to hang on a moment while I check on something, she told me not to bother but I got up anyway.
Walking forward down the aisle I could feel the heads of all the "passengers" turn as I passed which sent a chill right down my spine.
When I reached the cabin door to the cockpit the flight attendant was standing there holding it open for me,
"Room for one more, Honey."
The pilot was sitting at the controls, his back to me, and, laughably, wearing a set of Mickey ears.
Then he turned around.
He had a skeleton face, what you would call a "death skull" but without any lips his jaw went up and down when he said, "Hi there, dead boy!"
I jerked to a sitting position, my pillow soaked with sweat along with the top of my t-shirt.
Damn, why does this always happen the night before I have to fly? This is at least the second time for sure, maybe the third it's happened.
Most of my dreams or nightmares are so convoluted, ridiculous, or jumbled all up that they make absolutely no sense at all. But this one almost played out as a movie, with me a reluctant star.
Looking at the clock, it's 2:15, Smidgy told me she's setting the alarm for 3:30 so since I'm not falling back asleep anytime soon I grabbed my glasses and went downstairs to finish out this terrific night on the couch.
Twenty minutes and a smoke later, I knew there was no poiint in trying anymore, so I went through a mental checklist to make myself feel better, or at least prepared.
It seemed I was all set, even printed out the boarding passes yesterday, and YES, I have all my meds already in my carry on bag, no turning around this time. Even took out the pills I have to take this morning and set them aside.
At 3:30 I see the light come on upstairs, she's up and now all the wheels are in motion. I still dawdled too much getting ready and making sure the ice maker was off, and shut off the washer water supply and lowered the thermostat so that I barely had enough time to get online for a second and type; "Annnnnnnnd we're off!", when she called up and said "Cab's here."
The tricky part was getting the bags to the cab without the cats getting out but we managed.
When the driver asked how we were going to pay he was none too happy when I told him Visa, tried to say the slider wasn't working and can't we pay cash?
We've run into this attitude before, Smidgy started to argue telling him the office told us Visa was just fine, when I suddenly stopped her.
"Ok, how about this; you ring up the 55 dollar fare on the Visa, and I'll tip you in cash?"
Ding, Ding, Diing, we have a winner!
He ran the Visa through first, before we left and I told him I'll tip him when we get there alive.
We pulled up to AA at 5:20 for our 7 o'clock flight and I don't mean Alcoholics Anonymous.
After a very quick smoke we went inside to find ourselves right in between counter B way on the left end, and counter A way on the right end.
Diane chose A and I trudged after her.
We each have a carry on and a bag to check and believe me, with all the whiskey, vodka and Sunny D's in the checked bags, they weren't light.
A worker was standing at the opening of a roped off line area and Diane asked her if this is where we check our bags. The woman told her no, you have to go down to counter B for that! ARRRRGGHH!
We reverse course with the bags not getting any lighter. We still have the old fashioned type that doesn't have wheels or one of those pull out handles, these are the kind you pick up by the strap at the top and carry.Her carry on is a smaller type suitcase while mine is more like a duffel bag, I even have a brand new package of fuzzy cups jammed in there.
Trudging back to counter B I was losing ground to Smidgy.
When she pulled up to talk to another worker I just stopped right there and waited to see what would happen.
Unbelievably she was sent back to counter A, when she passed my on the way back she was not a happy flier.
Worker number one didn't have a chance this time;
"Do not tell me to walk my bags back to the other counter again, I was just told emphatically that this is where I check the bags for Orlando."
The worker mumbled something like, "geesh, ok, what do I know, I just work here" and Diane was past her on the way to the counter.
Checking the bags went without a hitch, one bag weighed 44 pounds, the other 38. Damn, sure felt like more.
Had time to step out in the cold for a few more puffs before i could tell Smidgy was getting anxious so we then headed off to be groped.
A line was already formed and you can't help but get nervous about the whole thing. I emptied my pockets into a basket, took off my jacket, ring, watch and shoes and put them in there too. I really didn't care if I got singled out, gropage can be fun!, but I walked through the archway with nary a beep, same thing for my jacket and the rest of the crap in the basket.
(ok, I just went back and skimmed over some of this chapter before I posted it and I'm not gonna change it but I'm going to beat Smidgy to it before she calls the dangling participle police on me again. No, my jacket didn't walk through the archway by itself nor the basket)
This really cracked me up;
You can't bring a lighter in a checked bag, but you can put them in the carry on, and even carry them on your person if you want to light off some sparklers I guess during the flight.
Smidgy went through clean too. She later told me she saw a young woman set off some detectors and she was pulled aside to wait for a female groper to come out for her. If I had known I would have offered to do it, just to save time on everybody's part.
After putting all our pieces back together we then had to walk down a long walkway to gate 19 that brought us to just this side of Indiana. Then we sat and waited.
You all know I've harped on all the things I hate about flying before, but some things still bother me, especially the jargon they use. Couldn't they find a better word then "terminal"? And even when I hear the phrase, "carry-on" I hear, carrion in my mind.
Even on the boarding pass it says our plane is a M-80.
Technically, it's an MD-80 for McDonnelDouglas but they just call it an M-80, after the banned firecracker that probably cost more kids fingers or hands then any other firework.
But I'm not sure MD-80 sounds better either.
What, is it 4 times worse than MD 20 20?
Remember that stuff? They still make it just in case you've forgotten what it's like to throw up for 3 days straight.
The MD stood for Mogen David, the 20 20 stood for 20%alcohol, and 20 times you will heave when there is nothing left to heave.
It's a delightful vintage.
At twenty to 7 they were supposed to start the pre-boarders, but it didn't happen.
Finally at 7 a woman came over the mike to say that our plane has a maintenance issue, and will be delayed.
That's just friggin great!
Why don't you just add to my nerves and say that your still looking for the bomb that someone called in.
I asked Diane, "Did you close the cockpit door on the seatbelt when you left the last time?"
She didn't see the humor in that.
Then Diane nudged me; "Look, there's the captain."
I glanced up where she was looking to see a tall, skinny kid standing there wearing a uniform and a pilot's cap.
"No way, he's too young!" "Can't be him, he was just showing off his new Eagle Scout badge."
"Listen to him, his voice hasn't even dropped yet."
"His mother told him to be home before dark when she dropped him off!"
But it was him, and they said they were now going to start pre-boarding, after seeing him I knew we were all dead anyway so I didn't care if they had said "waterboarding".
Finally, they called our group and I found myself back in the tunnel leading to the plane again. The nightmare tried to take hold of me, but I wouldn't let it.
I didn't have to.
Just past the threshold of the plane I was met by a priest.
As we walked slowly down the green mile to my chair of death he was reading from a little black book.
"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,'
"for there's a great big beautiful tomorrow, shining at the end of every day."
Marvelous! I get a Disser priest.
But, like in the dream, I pressed my face to the window, the closeness was really getting to me only this time I can't wake myself up. Then the pilot came on the intercom and told us that the maintenance issue was all better now, there was a burned out lightbulb in the dashboard and nobody could figure out how to change it. They were all ready to scuttle the flight and move us all to the other end of the terminal to a different flight when somebody figured out how to change the entire panel, instead of just the bulb.
Ok, yeah, yeah, I feel MUCH better NOW!
You're in good hands, with the Boy Scouts of America.
Then we finally started rolling, by this point my nerves were at a fever pitch. It's not just the takeoff and landing that worries me like a lot of people, but all the time in between too. Just because you are way high in the air doesn't always mean you are safe, I don't like being that high in something I have no control over.
Yes, I have altitude attitude.
To quote Woody Allen again, it's not that I'm afraid of death, I just don't want to be there when it happens.
But what I am afraid of though is pain, we just don't get along.
And when something bad happens in airplanes, well there's a plentiful plethora of potentially painful possibilities preventing peace of mind.
I had just read that Dec. 16 will be the 50th anniversary of what at the time was the worst aircraft tragedy to date.
Took place in the air over New York, a mile high in the air.
"United, meet TWA, TWA, United."
But I read that because of this tragedy, many changes were made to make flying so much safer for all of us.
Like adding traction control and those 5 mile per hour collision bumpers to the planes.
And floating seat cushions so you don't have to drown in your seat but now you can choose to drown at the top of the ceiling if you'd prefer it that way.
I also have another problem;
When I get really nervous I talk a blue streak, make dumb jokes and basically annoy all those around me. The stupidest crap will seem funny to me and it's all I can do to keep my mouth shut right now.
I didn't entirely succeed.
Rolling along about 25 mph went on for a long time. Then we came to a stop, made a left turn and resumed driving along about 25 miles per hour.
I was ecstatic!
" Great, we're gonna drive to Florida after all."
"Ungh!" Diane gave me an elbow to the ribs.
" I hope the pilot remembered to bring toll change." "Ungh."
"Should I tell him about the Briley Parkway bypass around Nashville?"
"Ungh."
I was quiet for a minute, mostly to give my ribs a rest but one line would not be denied:
"As God is my witness I thought airplanes could fly!"
"UNGH!"
Then you could hear the engines start to whine, even louder then my whining and we were speeding up, soon, the ground started to fall away too and we were aloft.
As we climbed I kept swallowing to unplug my ears, and then we would climb some more. The plane finally leveled off just this side of Uranus, then the Captain got on the intercom again.
"Howdy folks, this here's the wildest ride in the willlllllderness, so hang onto your hats and glasses."
Ok, really he told us that he hopes to make us for the 25 minuted delay and still get us to Orlando on schedule, it was supposed to land at 10:35 Disney time.
The rest of the flight was smooth, no problems or turbulence and I even took my face away from the window for a while. And I did it without any valium or vikes, though both were in my pocket, still didn't like the way the Vallium made me feel and didn't want to waste the vikes just in case we didn't crash after all.
Well, kid pilot not only made it on time, he beat it by 5 minutes, and this was after it seemed we were in a holding pattern for a while over MCO.
I think it was when he took the Saturn bypass that did it!
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see y'all, I'll get to some posts I missed later.
A close second was Richard's Wild Irish Rose. Really strong, sweet wine. I watched a guy drink a bottle playing poker, didn't seem the slightest bit buzzed until he got up finally to take a leak and fell flat on his face on the way to the john. 
Caught my father-in-law right in the forehead one year with the toy.....the subject comes up every year now 
