Spanky's Place

I'm trying to be nice, really, I am. However, the only reason that this fellow isn't physically sitting on me is because I was smart enough to put the armrest down before we left Phoenix. I'm not really worried about him reading this, as I don't think he can see over is left arm (which, by the way, is bigger than my thigh). This guy could give Jabba the Hut a run for his money. Thus far, this has been quite a memorable flight.

Ahh yes, the flight. We were supposed to leave Phoenix at 9:50 this morning. We were delayed a bit (not that unusual) due to a delay from another flight coming into Phoenix from Los Angeles. There were people on that flight that were supposed to change planes and get on ours, but because it was delayed we had to wait on the ground for a bit. It finally landed, and the folks from that plane (my new friend included) got to do an OJ sprint to get to our plane. So, at 10:30, they finally got on, and we were good to go.

Or so I thought. As it turns out, there was a problem the main cabin door of our plane, something about them not being able to latch it properly. Now, by this time I was ready to give the flight crew a roll of duct tape and tell them to have at it, but I doubt that they would have accepted my help. So we waited....ka-thunk (sounds of somebody slamming the latch from outside), and waited,....KA-THUNK, and waited, ...KA-THUNK (could feel the whole plane shudder on that last one), and waited some more. Finally the Captain came on and explained to us that we were going to have to deplane (by the way, why does the act of getting off an aircraft have it's own verb?) and go wait at another gate for another flight. Oh boy, this is what I live for.

So we all trump off our plane, and head to the new gate, and wait,...and wait,...and wait some more. They finally get us loaded on to the plane (have to check each person's ID against the "list" -a process that while good in theory seems to drag out forever). How hard is it to figure out that if they are checking IDs, it might be a good idea to have your ID ready when you get to the head of the queue? But noooo, aunt Nelda has to wait until she is there at the head, and everybody is waiting for her, to even begin to think about digging the darn thing out of her handbag, which is of course loaded up with trinkets, lunch, about a gazillion tissues, and various other aunt Nelda type of things, before she can find her wallet. And of course once she opens the wallet, she has to dig through stacks of Library, AARP, Costco, etc. cards, 27 pictures of her nieces and nephews (telling the poor soul working the queue about each one -of course) before she finally finds her ID and can prove that yes, she is in fact the person on the list and should be allowed on the plane. And as you have probably guessed, there are many aunt Neldas on this plane (we are going to Florida after all.)

Finally, we all get on the plane (hmm, getting on an aircraft doesn't get it's own verb...interesting) and settled in for takeoff. At 12:30 we finally get into the air, two hours behind schedule. I could have decided to get upset about all of this, but instead I took a deep "cleansing" breath and relaxed. Checking the in-flight movie, I noticed that Collateral is playing. Cool! I've always wanted to see that.

Which brings me full-circle. I'd really like to see this film, it looks to be pretty good. As it is, I've missed about two thirds of it due to the continual interruptions from my seat mate. He appears to be, sadly, suffering from a bit of incontinence and has made so far, 18 trips to the rest-room. Thank goodness he seems to be taking care of whatever is bothering him in the rest-room, but still, this is getting a bit tiresome.

I think I'm going to give up on the film and just take a nap. I can always use his shoulder as a gigantic pillow.

-Devin.