2 posts tagged “scary”
...at least, not in the middle of a snowstorm. I have lots of stories, for you guys, but let's start with the scary one first.
Last Sunday I was scheduled to fly out of Moline, Illinois, connect in Detroit and land safely in Albany at 3:18 in the afternoon. I do not sleep well before a flight and Saturday night was no exception. I probably had 3 hours of fairly restful sleep before awaking at 4:30. Fine. I forced down a banana and some yerba mate before heading to the airport around 8:30.
My first flight was delayed because Detroit was closing due to snow. About an hour later than our scheduled departure we boarded the plane and took off in the hopes that DTW would reopen by the time we got there. It didn't. We diverted to Grand Rapids and sat on the tarmac for a couple of hours while the pilot (who was awesome) served us snacks and beverages. Snacks were limited since they only have those paid ones now and they were out by the time they got to my row. My seat mate offered me a couple of bites of his trail mix so that helped. By the time we made it to Detroit and taxied (for what felt like forever) it was nearly 5PM. I was bumped to the 9:30 flight. I found my way down to my gate, had them print me a new boarding pass, got some food vouchers (always ask for those!) and found a pay phone to call Mr. Val (still no cell phone - woot!). When I realized I still wouldn't be home for another six hours I started to lose it. I hung up with Mr. Val, went into the bathroom and had a good cry. After that I finally ate some dinner, a Greek salad, and wandered all around the airport, rode the monorail and did some writing.
Our 9:30 flight was delayed an hour because the jet bridge was broken. Of course, when we finally boarded the plane I founded I was sandwiched between two other passengers. Fine. I tried to doze for most of the flight. I was feeling pretty nauseous from exhaustion anyway. When the nausea kept me from dozing I attempted to locate my bag (*the* bag) just to make sure it was within reach. I didn't have one. I did see my neighbor's peeking out from the seat-back, so I felt better again.
Twenty minutes outside of Albany we began our descent. I've been on a lot of rocky flights before, but our turbulence was really bad. Scary bad. After our first really big dip (you know, the one where everyone gasps because they don't expect it?) I asked my neighbor for her air sick bag. And why wouldn't it be sealed closed with someone's gum? So there I was picking apart some jerk's gum and I glanced out the window, we were close to landing, maybe I wouldn't get sick after all.
About 100 yards out from the runway our landing was aborted and we were suddenly shooting straight back up into the sky at full speed. I don't know if you've ever experienced that but I had only seen it in movies. That's when people started crying and praying. The turbulence was worse than ever. There was no news from the cockpit, we had no idea what was happening. That's when I started throwing up. Then my neighbor needed the bag, so I passed it over but got sick again too. Luckily, I had shed my hooded sweatshirt when we aborted the landing due to profuse sweating. Hooded sweatshirts are good for all kinds of things. Finally the captain came on and said that it wasn't until they saw the runway that they realized there was too much snow and the crosswinds were too strong (gusts were over 40mph) to land safely. The airport was sending out more trucks to sand so we had to wait.
So we circled for 40 minutes. That bouncing plane was dead silent except for sobbing for those 40 minutes. I didn't know what was going to happen, but there were many of us who didn't think we'd make it to the ground (in one piece at least). I always wondered what wold go through my head in a time like that and now I know. My life didn't flash before my eyes, I didn't have any regrets, I didn't cave and start praying. Instead, I felt incredibly content. And maybe that was due to the relief provided by the vomiting, but seriously, I felt at peace. Sure, I wanted nothing more than to touch the ground again (and not as a charred corpse), but in thinking that any one of those moments could be my last I knew there was nothing I could do about any of it and that I didn't need to worry. I was happy with my life thus far.
The captain told us we were going to make a second attempt and if we had to abort again they didn't know yet what we would do. Everyone closed their window shades. We all were hanging on to arm rests and the seats in front of us. The turbulence was rough and we couldn't tell how close we were, not that any of us really wanted to know. When we touched down on the runway people started cheering, I was crying, so was my seat mate. One of the flight attendants got on the speaker and said, "that's what you call a good captain!"
After deplaning I went straight into Mr. Val's arms and just sobbed. But the night was not over yet. It took over an hour to get our luggage. In that time I was sick again but thankfully had a restroom and some privacy. The streets were a mess trying to get home, but I didn't care. They were streets!! Streets!!! I didn't care that they were covered with snow and ice, it was the middle of the night and I have brand spankin' new Nokian tyres so I had fun and drove fast. We didn't get home until 2:30 A.M.
I've heard far worse travel stories, but this is the worst that's happened to me thus far. My last horrific travel day was around Christmas 2001 and was also courtesy of Northwest Airlines (although that time the weather wasn't the problem, it was the airline). Obviously my troubles this time around were due to weather. I've got to say, the staff and crews of Northwest did their absolute best every step of the way and I have no complaints whatsoever as to how they handled the various situations.
So, I'm alive. Woohoo.
So I'm cleaning the nether regions of my closets and came across a couple of particularly foul items. Both will soon be available on ebay!
The first...something that Husband brought into the relationship. I have hated clowns (except for Bozo) for as long as I can remember and this heavy ceramic bank is the stuff of nightmares:
I mentioned this piece on a comment thread over at Redzilla's but the sheer horror of it warrants its own place here:
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