I recently returned from what I thought would be sunny and relaxing Sarasota, Fla. Sunny, not so much, relaxing, very.
I soaked up some rays, jumped the surf, indulged in some tasty Gulf treats and spent time with my family and relatives, all at the same time, dodging the endless rain. However, I do not enjoy flying, so as days passed, and it was time for me to board the bird, I was slightly nervous.
With 20 minutes to spare, I checked my luggage, passed through security, bought a bottle of water and found seat 6F, which was a ‘middle seat.? A middle seat is like a splinter, no one wants one.
My first thought was, I could get stuck next to a crying baby, a handsome guy or someone wanting to tell me their life story. Lucky enough, I sat between two very nice women, especially the one to my right who was a second grade teacher from Warren.
As we transcended thousands of feet into the air above the clouds on an airline who will remain nameless, but let’s just say, not who the new terminal at Metro is named after, I began my journey home to the sunshine.
My very peculiar flight attendants were a woman from New Jersey, an 80 year old man with a Sesame Street tie and another who looked as if she just woke up from bed. The Jersey woman staked her claim right up front and chatted it up the entire flight, with an older couple, Ted Nugent’s ‘hunt manager? and anyone else who wanted to hear her talk. The other two attendants aimlessly walked the airplane passing out animal crackers and tomato juice.
This story is actually leading somewhere.
Usually, when I have flown in the past, they have been pretty uneventful flights. This one, no. This one made me laugh and insane all at once.
The hunt manager in front of my seat proceeded to name drop the entire flight about his celebrity boss, and showed the two 80 year old woman in his aisle footage of dead animals. The woman behind my seat proceeded to inform the whole airplane about her 300-pound epileptic mother, her failing marriage and son who hasn’t kept or had a job in over five years. We’re not talking just little bits and pieces of information, we’re talking life biographies.
My new friend and I occasionally passed glances and shared a smile knowing that we were lucky to have been sitting next to one another, instead of the other obvious choices.
Besides the airline version of the Jerry Springer show, the flight was smooth, until I looked out the window and noticed we had been circling over Lake Erie for 30 minutes. I became somewhat concerned and asked the Jersey attendant what the situation was. Her response, ‘Geez, I really don’t know. They said something is going on at the runway, we’re just sorta swooshing around for awhile,? and turned around. Something is going on? Hmmmm….not helpful. Plane crash? Giraffe escapee from the Detroit Zoo? Bomb? She was not informative, and it made my hands a little clammy. We later found out that it was a slight technical problem.
As we started our decent, the attendant who just woke up asked us to turn on our air vents because we were in fact inside a ‘steel tube? and it would become hot. If I was really afraid to fly, these attendants would not have done anything for me except enhance every fear of crashing and burning I had. I mean, really, was the 80 year old attendant, bless his heart, really going to help me survive any kind of emergency situation? I think not.
As baggage arrived, the hunt manager walked around passing out his card to anyone that was interested to hear that his boss was Ted Nugent, the Jerry Springer lady continued her saga and I bid my new friend farewell only to receive my suitcase with three fabulous new rips.
Moral of the story…..upgrade and don’t always be afraid to take the splinter.