 |
| Be glad you're somewhere else |
A friend of mine, when writing of his overseas travels, writes only of his journey to the airport and of the flight itself. I just returned from a three week trip to England and am overwhelmed by my impressions, so I'll adopt my friend's method.
We left Minneapolis at ten p.m. bound for Heathrow. I had paid extra for a non-stop flight and once we reached cruising altitude, I settled in for a long night of insomnia. Our jet had seven seats across and Teresa and I were in the middle section. We were in the second to last row giving us a panoramic view of our fellow 200 passengers. An hour after takeoff, the stewardesses began the meal service pushing their bulky carts down the two aisles.
That's when the turbulence began. We always expect a little turbulence, but this increased in violence, like when a rough gravel road turns into a plowed field. The captain ordered us to keep our belts fastened, but the meal service continued. Then the bottom dropped out and the plane fell for I don't know how long. Two seconds is a long time when you're falling. When we hit solid air again the plane lurched sideways and many people screamed. Teresa didn't scream. She was busy boring three inch holes into my two inch biceps. "Cabin crew return to your seats," the captain ordered. One stewardess got her cart back to the galley. The other abandoned hers. The stewardesses plopped into the seats behind us as the turbulence continued. It was not reassuring to hear the stewardess behind me muttering "Jesus Christ" as we bumped along. Gradually things smoothed out. Meal service was resumed. Cheese tortellini, extra dente. The crew issued generous pours of wine.
The sun was well up when we landed. Teresa asked one of the stewardesses if that turbulence had been unusual. She said that in forty years, this was her first flight with screaming passengers. Maybe she says that after every rough flight, but it made us feel heroic. She said she felt most sorry for the man whose glass of red wine had been splattered over his shirt. Note to self: white wine only on aircraft.
After driving around England for three weeks (more about that later), we returned to Heathrow. Hurricane Ophelia was battering Ireland that day and Ireland was along the route to Minnesota. "We'll fly over it," the ticket agent assured me. She also told me I was exactly thirty years and one day older than her. Nice. We got up and over Ophelia without a hitch. People were dying down in Ireland. I don't understand how people manage to die in hurricanes these days. I felt safe in my metal cocoon as I turned on the little screen in the seat back in front of me. These screens are a wonder. You plug in your earbuds and can watch TV show and up to a dozen recently released movies. But the movies were dumb and the TV shows dumber. I switched to the flight tracker screen to follow our path across the Atlantic and opened my book. About then, the woman in front of me turned and said, "Stop hitting the seat." She had a thick accent I could barely decipher. "What, I'm not kicking her seat," I said to myself. A minute later she turned again. "Stop hitting seat." I wanted to oblige her. She had an ogre-ish, man-eating look about her. Finally it hit me, my tapping on the screen was being transmitted into her skull, irritating the heck out of her. From then on I gently touched the screen as needed, and there were no more complaints. Later Teresa found a funny TV show. She started her screen from the beginning and we watched it together. It was very funny, but I worried my chuckles would awaken my adversary. I wondered if she would have screamed on the flight over. I doubt it, but I'll never know for sure.
