Joyful Friday Flight

Let me say that flying out of Hartford airport on a bad-weather Friday evening is right up there with home dental surgery and amateur colonoscopy in the ranks of things best avoided. I should have guessed that things were not going to go well when I returned my rental car, and found a long line of other cars and a complete absence of spotty car return youths to accept them. Apparently the computers were down, which rendered said youths incapable of elementary cerebral function. Nevertheless, having addressed the problem in the time honored way (leaving the keys and walking off with an obsecene comment) the trip to the terminal passed without incident. The lack of any line at security temporarily lifted my spirits but once through the checkpoint I entered the characterless pit which is the American Airlines departure lounge. The pitiful shortage of seats, lack of functioning air conditioning, absence of any decent food (even a burger place, for fuck's sake!) and toilet facilities which would make taking a shit a life-altering event, may not seem to be a major impediment to anyone lucky enough to have a flight leave on time. But get stuck there for two hours and you come to hate the place.

Now don't get me wrong, I've done the 12 hour delays, stuck in overflowing airports, and I'm not looking to compete in a "my experience was worse than yours" contest. Shit, this wasn't even in my top 50 worst travel stories. But I'm going to record it anyway - I'm sure you've read worse stuff.

We boarded late. The plane was a tiny commuter jet, two seats one side, one seat the other, vestigial overhead storage one side only. Plane nerds will no doubt know what it was but I fly assorted aircraft regularly with no interest in who made them. No doubt, if one crashed, the make and model would figure prominently in the subsequent news reports but it's not as if I have much of a choice (oh no - I'd really rather fly a 737-300 - do you have one available?). This plane distinguished itself principally by the overpowering smell of piss which hit you as you walked onboard. Of course I was seated at the back, right next to the toilet, where the smell was so bad you half expected to find urinal cakes in the seat back pocket.

We taxied out to a distant corner of the tarmac, where we sat in the sun, swaeting, until the captain told us that we would be delayed for at leat 90 minutes because of weather. Of course the fuckwits knew that before we left the gate but, and here's the amazing thing, they actually took us back to the gate and let us deplane!! (Isn't that one of the signs of the apocalypse?) Now we were back in the terminal, cooled by a single large portable fan and feasting on chips and candy.

Eventually we reboarded the urine-soaked, cigar-shaped coffin that was our plane and, after waiting for more fuel (sudden realization that we needed more, but only as we were about to leave) we pushed back.

The rest of the trip was dull. My arse went to sleep about an hour from St.Louis, and condensation dripped all over me as we descended, but at least we arrived without making the evening news. Now I'm off to the dry cleaner to see if they can get rid of the urine smell...

Copyright 2007 Edward Bison