STUCK IN THE BIG ATL

First glitch: I’m sitting on the runway in Atlanta waiting for our plane to get repaired. It’s in the high 90s today, and outside the heat and humidity must be melting the paint right off the aircraft. Already we’ve been sitting here for an hour and a half with no end in sight. Just sitting on the tarmac. According to the pilot there was a small malfunction in the main control panel of the cockpit and maintenance appears in no hurry to get here and fix it. Go, Delta Airlines!! Trying to make us feel better and show how apologetic they are, they offered us a small cup of free water. Woo hoo! Great way to make an impression.

When I first boarded the plane, I discovered I had been lucky enough to have a window seat. The little kid still alive in me after 57 years is always delighted by a window seat when I fly, and on the leg from Seattle to Atlanta I had studied the flight map and noticed that our route would take us directly over the Gulf of Mexico. How fascinating (and yet sad) it was going to be to fly over the oil spill and see the historic natural disaster from the air firsthand. Soon, two rather large, younger, Spanish-speaking women squeezed themselves into the seats next to me, and suddenly my cozy relationship with my seat placement simply fizzled. I was instantly claustrophobic. Soon, however, good fortune appeared to smile upon me when the friendly flight attendant asked the two Latina Butterballs if they would mind moving forward in the cabin. Ahhh…two empty seats to my left and an unobstructed view all the way to Guayaquil! Life was good again!

Wrong! My sense of bliss lasted only temporarily when a very short woman with an enormous wig-like head of long, stringy, jet-black hair followed by her 10-year-old son (who was already whining) were reassigned to the two previously empty seats next to me. A heated five minute debate between the two of them ensued regarding who would sit in the middle seat. I prayed it would be whiny the kid hoping he would take up less space. Instead, she climbs awkwardly over the seats and flops down next to me.

She is a very nervous woman, praying to Santa Teresa and every 5 minutes she makes the sign of the cross in triplicates. At one point, she was leaning forward with her head on the seat in front of her weeping audibly. Her son is no better and also a little bag of nerves and whimpering inconsolably. I’m getting very close to leaning over and telling him to knock it off. To compound the situation (remember: we’re sitting in the bright sunlight in this Southern summer heat in a tube of metal), this woman has no sense of where her seat ends and mine begins. Her over-sized purse has made its way onto my half repeatedly. I can’t count the number of times she has elbowed me or bumped her knee up against mine. Half the time, she’s doing her airline version of the “gangster lean”. When she took off her left shoe, she bent so far to the right (toward me) that her entire head and all that hair on her head covered my lap, much to my embarrassment. Fortunately, she has accurately read my not –so-subtle body language and facial expressions and backed away each time.

My patience is running thin. My buns are aching. It’s been over 2 hours now, and still we sit. Where is my Irish luck!? I’m cranky, tired, and sitting next to an emotional, hyperactive, contortionist wreck who has virtually made it to first base with me already..and if my peripheral vision is as accurate as I think it is- I do believe she’s trying to read what I’m typing here. If that is the case: STAY ON YOUR OWN SIDE LADY!!!!!

Considering 100 or 200 years ago, this journey would be unbearably harrowing at times, full of danger and disease and surely would have taken weeks or even months, I shouldn't complain, but this is turning out to be one helluva flight! Wait...I think we're moving!!!....