Sitting next to the airplane lavatory, that’s Crazy.
Nobody wants to sit there. I didn’t want to sit there. I did sit there. Here’s how.
Because the baggage handlers were shooting heroin on the tarmac in Nashville, they were extraordinarily slow and distracted loading our bags. It’s impossible to mainline hard narcotics and stay on schedule. And because everything in the airline industry is a domino in a massive geometric pattern of other dominoes, any delay for any reason begins a chain reaction of time loss that not even Einstein could theorize.
It started when we took off 25 minutes behind schedule. You would think that somewhere along the 2,500 mile route we could make up this time.
NOPE.
The pilot promised he’d find the extra air speed. He lied. I think he stopped the cocktail party on the flight deck just long enough to tell us what we needed to hear.
“Sorry about the delay folks,” he said over the barely audible intercom. “We’ll try and make it up for you on your next flight.”
CLICK! And that’s it! Not so much as a kiss good night. Just leave the money on the night stand.
I imagine the pilots laughing in the cocktail lounge in the front of the plane as strippers perform high altitude lap dances on top of delicate instrumentation.
We only have 25 minutes between flights to start with. Honestly, I don’t blame the pilots, I blame Southwest airlines. How can you schedule a family of five onto a connecting flight from the other side of the country with only 25 minutes of buffer time. Is this what air travel has come to. A mile high crap game of “sure hope they make it.”
Think about it. You have to fly 2,500 miles. That’s the easy part. If there are no mid air medical emergencies, or bird strikes or drunk guys taking off all their clothes. Then, with luck, you actually land at the appointed airport. 25 minutes goes pretty damn quick. You have to taxi to the jet way. You have to wait for every tom and dick and harry to stand and pull something wedged tightly into an over head bin. You have to shuffle up the jet way, and hope that a ramp assistant is not loading a disabled person into a wheel chair. That could easily bring down your house of cards. Then you have to get to the terminal, locate your next gate and negotiate an entirely new line of cattle fighting to stuff themselves into a flying tube. Meanwhile, another set of stoned luggage handlers has to go into the belly of your icy cold plane and find the pink transfer tickets that only say SJO (San Jose) They have to pull these bags, and get them onto a cart and send them to the flight heading to San Jose. 25 minutes. David Blane can play Chess under water longer than 25 minutes. 25 minutes is nothing to Bernie Madoff serving 125 year prison sentence, but to me and my family, it’s turning a normal travel day into a carry on bag decathlon.
The plane lands. Everyone stands. We try and push our way forward, but it’s like cutting through saw grass in the Florida Everglades.
Getting off the plane takes several precious minutes. We get into the jet way.
Watch out wheel chair dude.
My family is sprinting up the 45 degree slope.
We hit the terminal and locate the next gate.
“Hurry on board” the gate official says.
We run down the gateway and we are met by a flight attendant who exclaims; “Oh my, there are more of you.”
I look at this fruit loop and wonder if he’s been huffing paint.
“Did you save me and my family of 5 a seat,” I say testily as I enter the aircraft.
I look up and seemingly every seat is filled. Every eye is staring at me. Hundreds of angry eyes are burning with death glares. I can read their thoughts. So these are the people who are holding us up. Sit Down all ready. Why are we waiting on these fools?
If Chinese Throwing Stars were available to passengers, I believe I would need a band aid.
I find two seats mid way back. “These taken?” I ask. The man shakes his head no with a frustrated look.
Get real home slice! 2 golden seats all to yourself? For an entire flight? Get real! I think to myself.
I put my wife and ten year old there.
I continue fighting my way back. The deeper I go, the thicker the funk in the air.
I see two more seats. The flight attendant has now joined the fray and decides to throw gasoline on my fire.
“Sir we really must ask you to take your seat so we can push away from the gate”
I look around for a Chinese Fighting Star to throw at her head.
“Sounds great. You find my two kids and me a seat and blast off lady.”
She doesn’t like my tone. I don’t like her.
I find the 17 year old and 14 year old two seats together and begin moving to the rear of the plane.
I am deep into the aisle now. The further back I go, the darker it gets. It’s like traveling into the jungle without a compass. The sun is blotted out by a thick canopy of humanity. I gaze into the weary faces of these travelers. They remind me of people coming to America for the first time, waiting to catch their first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty. The seats are crammed with people who look like they drive a small circus car for a living. Aisle 28: freaks Aisle 29: genetic mutants. Aisle 30: prisoners, miscreants, nerdewells and the criminally insane.
“Sit here sir.” The flight attendants gaze is harsh as she directs me to sit in the aisle seat one row from the bulk head.
“Is this seat taken?” I ask. There is an older Indian couple seated beside the window and middle seats. She is wearing a large colorful head scarf and brightly flowered wrap. He is dressed like my 8th grade science teacher except he has no pocket protector. His hair is slicked back. I don’t if he’s greasy or just applied a tube of Vaseline to his scalp. He says something to me in a foreign language that flows out of his mouth like gumballs.
I sit and quickly belt up.
Within 30 seconds I discover that this seat comes with territorial rights. The arm rest is his, or so he thinks. I try and stick my elbow up on the armrest and I am met with the bony Resistance of an angry Indian man’s forearm. It won’t budge. He is looking at his wife and screaming something in his native tongue. His wife is only 4 inches away, but he is hollering, angrily. I am sure they are talking about me. I don’t speak whatever language this is, but I am now sure, having known this angry man for 49 seconds that he hates me and he wants to fight me to the death over this freaking arm rest.
I take a deep breath and wait for the angry rant to end. I wonder how this trip suddenly became a scene from Slumdog Millionaire.
The plane begins to back away from the gate. I can’t help but wonder if my 3 bags made the incredible baggage trek from gate 5 to gate 3. With Southwest Mutants handling the luggage, nothing is guaranteed.
The plane takes off and there is a lot of vibration. The jet engines are so loud, it sounds like a hair dryer hooked up to my ear drum.
Everything in the galley behind me is rumbling.
The only good news is the slumdog millionaire game show host next to me, who is still yelling by the way, is temporarily drowned out.
There seems to be more funk at the back of the plane. There seems to be more coughing and sneezing back here. It’s like I’m in a 3rd world nation and this is the line to get free UNICEF food.
Once we get to 10,000 feet, the pilot takes off the seat belt sign.
Like jack in the boxes, saggy ass Americans pop up. Stretch pants and Velcro and neon colored clothes that shouldn’t be produced no less worn, begin to emerge.
I try and push my elbow onto an inch of the arm rest. NOPE. Slumdog is still holding the line.
Only 55 minutes to go on this Nicaraguan refugee bus from hell.
Roaring engines and crying babies. The noise back here is over whelming. A guy two rows up is coughing up death. I want him to stop. Every germ he expels is traveling at a thousand miles a second and is being directed back into my nasal cavity. I feel like this is a giant aluminum test tube and we are incubating a new strain of swine flu. I want to stop breathing in this man’s breath, but sadly, it is the only air Southwest will provide me.
The the line for the bathroom begins forming. this is atrocious. One after another, people who carried on 5 gallon jugs of Starbucks begins moving to the back of the plane to relieve themselves. They waddle down the aisle, touching every seat, like weebles that wobble but don’t fall down.
Then I hear the noise that will mark this flight.
WOOOOOOOSSSSSSSHHHHHHH!
The incredible vacuum sound from behind the door.
One after another after another. People slam the door and then WOOOOOSSSSSHHHH.
And then comes the overwhelming smell of Fabreeze and human stench dancing a tango in the air. It’s a terrible odor created by one lavatory being abused by too many excretory systems.
WOOOOOOSSSSHHH.
It’s as if swine flu is gurgling in the toilet, being sucked into a tank filled with blue liquid.
Slumdog Millionair nudges me for another millimeter of space. He barks at his wife in some gutteral language I don’t understand. WOOOOOOOSSSSSSHHHHHH. Then there is another rush of stink, like warm chum floating on a stagnant air current of disease.
I want to scream, or open up the emergency exit door and dive out.
I search the seat back cushion for a vomit bag. There is none. I swallow hard and close my eyes.
Only 47 minutes to go.
Thanks Southwest.
DING. You are now free to catch Swine Flu around the country.