Flying Follies

I left my apartment in Florida to go to the airport at 5:30 pm on Thursday night and arrived in my house on Friday morning at 5:30 am. I don't think that's how long it's supposed to take to go from Florida to New York.

The reason for our delay was that someone smelt an odor in the back of the plane that was making her sick. The pilot took precautionary measures and landed us in an abandoned airfield in Charlestown, South Carolina where we preceeded to spend the next five hours in an international flights holding area. I can't blame the pilot for choosing to be safe rather than sorry but if it was up to me I would have landed, kicked off the one person who smelt something, and proceeded to New York.

The delay may have been a blessing in disguise though because my mom didn't have to go to the airport at 11 pm to pick me up, I got a free round trip ticket for my troubles, and I met two really great people. A New York City doorman named Jimmy, who is a former NYC school teacher, and a South Beach saleswoman named Nicole who shares the same views on face lifts and boob jobs as I do. Talking with the two of them all night has inspired me to 'follow my heart' as Nicole said and 'never give up on my dreams' as Jimmy said.

Aside from making new friends the layover also allowed me time to come up with some comedic observations about flying:

If you can't bring a nail clipper on board why do they sell them in the gift shop?

I don't understand the point of asking someone at check in, "do you have any hazardous materials on you?" Like the person is really going to say, 'yeah, I have a couple of sticks of dynamite strapped to my chest and a shoe bomb on my right foot. Would you like to see?"

I don't know why they load the first class passengers on board first. The last thing in the world I would want if I was in first class would be to be sitting there while everyone else gets on board and gives me that look that says how the fuck did you get into first class.

My favorite pre boarding activity is people watching. First I check everyone out to see who I think might be the most likely terrorist on board. Then I look around to see who in the event of an emergency would be likely to help out. And if you ever see more potential terrorists than able bodied peopel it's time to switch flights.

I think it's pointless when they say that you can undo your seatbelt and move around the cabin. Um, newsflash assholes. There's no where to fucking move to. Where am I going? To the piano bar on the upper deck? Or maybe I thought I would stretch my legs on the indoor track.

Flights these days are high tec coming equipped with 30+ channels of DirectTV. However, when you're flying at 3 am there's nothing on! So, when I finally got back in the air last night I was able to watch Wings on A&E. Great, after spending 9 hours in an airport I get to watch a tv show about an airport.