Note: epic awkwardness is about to ensue.
First of all, I hate flying. I think we can all agree that my tendency towards the slightly neurotic + my obsessive compulsive anxiety disorder do not make for a calm, collected, somewhat rational flyer. No. My fear of flying is well documented because despite it, I KEEP GETTING ON AIRPLANES. See here. And also here.Why I keep torturing myself like this I do not even know.
That’s not true. I totally know. This time it was because I was invited to attend the WiiU experience, which consisted of demo-ing the new WiiU months before it is released and then drinks + dinner with my fellow Nintendo Brand Ambassadors. Which sounded like a really enjoyable night out for a stay-at-home-mom who has only left her baby overnight once in the past 20 months. Except that the event was in Chicago which is a place that I have to get to by airplane.
I got to the airport with what should have been plenty of time to go through security. Except that for some reason, every single person in Atlanta decided to also leave the city at nine o clock on a Saturday morning. I was in line for nearly an hour just waiting to get IN the line for security. Once I was finally deemed “not a threat to society” I discovered I had exactly seven minutes until my plane took off. Presumably without me on it as Hartsfield-Jackson is a very large airport and I have very short legs.
I sprinted up the escalator to my gate, yelling profuse apologies behind me to the grandfatherly-looking man that I had accidentally run in to, and collapsed at the counter flashing my flight number.
“They’re closing the door, you better run for it” said the completely-apathetic-to-my-situation man behind the counter, lazily pointing towards the gate.
I started waving and yelling “WAIT! DON’T LEAVE ME!” while hurtling over empty seats as they pulled the door closed.
And that is how I ended up barely making it on to the plane, the checker-inner lady pursing her lips and shaking her head at me as she scanned my ticket. It seriously should have qualified me for a spot on the US Olympic team.
Apparently, I was not the only one with a fear of flying as the middle aged ladies behind me began drinking in excess the moment we were in the air.
They were seated next to an older gentleman named Earl.
Poor Earl.
They began by inquiring into Earl’s work (turns out, Earl is a super important person. I totally google-stalked him.) Then they began to harass him with repeated requests to join them for dinner. Except Earl kept politely declining and saying that he was sure his work had arranged his dinner plans already. Drunk Lady #1 kept slurring “But I want to just listen to you talk, Earl. You’re shoo inte-le-shual. I never meet inte-le-shual people. I jusht meet shtupid people.”
Then her slightly less drunk friend told her to quit harassing earl. So Drunk Lady #1 did what anyone would do in that situation. SHE BIT HER.
SHE BIT HER! And then she kept biting her! And then when told by the flight attendant to quit biting people, she began yelling vulgar statements that I can not repeat on this blog lest my site turn up in quite the inappropriate search result listings.
She returned her attention to giving Earl her number, despite the fact that he kept politely giving it back to her. “Earl, she exclaimed, I don’t wanna have shex with you! I just want shome inneleshual convershashion. And maybe shome drinks. But I won’t get drunk”
“I won’t get drunk neither, said Drunk Lady #2, becaushe I drink every day.”
I inwardly congratulated myself on thinking to pack a pen and proceeded to immortalize this conversation on the back of my Sky Mall magazine.
Just then Drunk Lady #2 began shouting “Wait a minute! I didn’t know we had to fly over the ocean! I’m not flyin over no ocean!” to which someone informed her that it was, indeed, a lake below us. And also could she kindly shut up?
Now, I, being slightly incompetent in all things geographical, also did not realize that flying over a large body of water was how one gets to Chicago. I have no recollection of this from my last trip, although I flew into a different airport so maybe that’s why. Or I repressed the memory. In any case, as it turns out this is when the airplane begins to make it’s descent and as we all know if there is anything I fear as much as tornadoes and airplanes, it’s crashing into a large body of water. Please see here. Here. And also here.
So Drunk Lady #2 starts yelling “Oh my $@#&*!! stars we’re going to crash into the lake! We’re crashing into the lake!”
And that’s when I once again grabbed for the hand of the complete stranger sitting next to me and thought to myself “Self, there is no way I am getting on an airplane to get back home. Jeff is just going to have to put the baby in the car and drive to Chicago to get me.”
This is just the flight to Chicago y’all. This is only about 1/3 of the awkwardness I have to share. Except now I have to feed my baby because she has declared war on spoons.
(Legal Disclosure: I don’t even know if I have to put this here or not but I don’t want to get sued so here you go: I’m a Nintendo Brand Ambassador and they paid for my trip to the WiiU experience. I wasn’t asked to write this blog post. In fact, I imagine they probably would prefer I didn’t write about how crazy cakes my comped flight was but seriously, these stories are too good not to share.)
