The following is an epic tale. All of it is true, but the names have been
changed to protect me from a lawsuit.
My husband is from a small town in Texas.
It could be any town really, but we’ll just say that in this town there
are a lot of people who think very differently than I do.
Anyway, Brad's 10-year high school
reunion was coming up, and it was decided that we would attend. I wasn't
overly stoked, but I wanted to go to my reunion the next year, so unless I was
going to be a total brat, I was going.
This story is actually about the
reunion, but to get to that, you first have to know about The Worst Flight
Ever and how, with prayer, I landed the plane.
Getting to the reunion necessitated a
flight. Somehow, before we booked our
tickets, Brad learned that there's a teeny tiny airport in his hometown, a fact
he had apparently not learned in the 18 years he lived there.
He was so excited about his airport
discovery that he was determined we should try it out. Thus, a new travel plan was decreed.
We would not do what had worked so
well the past, which was fly into a large, nearby city and then rent a car and drive 90 minutes to the reunion.
No!
Instead, we would fly into a large,
nearby city and then hop on an adorable little plane and fly just 23 minutes to the newly discovered little baby airport, thus,
saving ourselves tens of dollars and 67 minutes.
So, on the appointed day, we first boarded
a regular sized plane, then made a plane change onto one made of Legos.
I knew something was wrong right away
when we got on and it was exactly 320 degrees. It was hotter on the plane than outside the
plane, and outside the plane was Texas in August. The passengers who were
already onboard were actually sitting in Hell.
We settled in to our microseats and
were informed that, due to the extremely short flight time, there would be no
beverage service. Oh, and we wouldn't get above 8,000 feet so we
shouldn’t stand up...or the weight distribution could be thrown off and we would
all die.
When we took off, immediately the
plane did that terrible shaky/dropping thing, and after that it didn't get
better...ever. It was like being on a carnival ride operated by blind
babies.
At one point, a flight attendant face planted onto a
passenger’s lap, and there wasn’t beverage service so who knows why she was
even up. The woman behind us threw up
three- THREE- times on this 23 minute flight. That's throwing up every
7.6666 minutes. There was crying, and
screaming and general pandemonium.
Needless to say, I was petrified.
So, I did what anyone who was raised by a mother who was raised Catholic
would do: started saying the Lord’s
Prayer nonstop. I said the Lord's Prayer over and over for approximately
22.5 minutes, and I guess it worked. We
didn’t die that day. We landed. Barely.
When we landed I don't even remember
if there was a send-off speech, I think we all just bolted out of the plane and
changed our pants. It was terrible, it
was awful, and I immediately started
telling the story to anyone who would listen, which was wonderful.
Next week: Part II, The Reunion
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