Flying the Tasha skies

Ah, so much to catch up on, so little time! Where to begin? Well, how about with the trip to Philly to see my Cancerchicks at a conference, which started out with a cropduster powered by a generator? But I get ahead of myself…..

So there I was in the American Airlines terminal, waiting for my plane to Philly, which is of course delayed. Mechanical issues, of course. Which is always worrisome, because what with the fines they give airlines these days if they’re late, I imagine them frantically slapping things together with duct tape, just to get the plane off on time.

We finally get onto the plane, which is a tiny little кукурузник, and I’m already peeved not just because of the delay but because the plane is SO tiny that there’s no room in the overhead bins for any of our wheelie bags. Then the true fun begins.

Captain: Okay folks, this is your captain speaking. Sorry about the really loud noise at the back of the aircraft! That’s the generator we had to plug in to power up the plane, since we couldn’t get one of the engines to work.

I swear I am not making any of this up.

He continues.

Captain:…..so we put in a new computer card and plugged in the generator and hopefully that’ll get us to Philly without that one engine!

The girl sitting next to me and I look at each other.

Girl: Okay, I didn’t need to know any of that.

Me: Umm, yeah, me neither. Not really on a need to know basis.

Girl: Down an engine?

Me: Plugged in a generator?

The whole plane is unusually quiet.

We manage to take off, and other than some major turbulence, the flight is pretty uneventful. Then as we approach Philly, sort of, I notice that the plane is starting to circle. Our illustrious captain speaks again:

Captain: Well folks, we were slated to get into Philly relatively on time (because we now cushion the schedule with an extra half hour just in case), but then we got word that there’s a boat in the harbor, so they’re rerouting all of us until they can get that boat moved. Shouldn’t be too long!

Again, the girl and I look at each other.

Girl: A boat?

Me: Blocking the planes from landing? WTH?

We finally land – finally! – and as we sit there on the runway, yes, another message from Captain Cropduster:

Captain: Okay folks, we need to wait for our chance to taxi in, but in the meantime, so that our generator doesn’t overheat, could those of you sitting near the windows close the shades, and make sure those air vents are open? Thanks! Should have you in in a jiffy.

I start laughing at this point. Seriously? Close the shades?

Me, to my seatmate: See, this is par for the course for me. I’ll tell my friends waiting at the airport for my plane to get in about our кукурузник plane powered by a generator delayed by a boat, and they’ll just say, oh yeah, we figured as much.

Sure enough. I call Cori to tell her I’m waiting for my wheelie bag to be dumped in the gangway, and explain the delays.

Cori: Well, it IS you – this doesn’t surprise us. At all.

Let this be a warning to the rest of you – if you see me at the airport, you might want to rethink your travel plans…..