The Flight

The trip begins with a morning call at 6am from Orbitz to tell me my plane will be arriving at 10:30am on time. Ok, thank you very much I didn’t need that extra hour of sleep anyway. Well, what the hell, now would be a good time to pack. I am not really a detail person; as a result, details are generally left out. Thinking ahead of time about things I should bring or getting prepared never really happens in my world, so throw some stuff in a bag, Ok this looks good and out the door I go. At the airport I managed to get through the security system with only minor issues. The “sniffer” alarm went off when I went through. I am not sure what that thing is supposed to check for. Anyway, it required that I now have to talk to someone about the possibility I might have a metal plate in my head or that I might be concealing more then 3oz of shampoo on me. Whatever, I suppose it is all in the name of safety, hard to argue with that. After a good verbal screening they made me walk through the machine a number of times, telling me to “NOT” touch the sides. Hey buddy I never touched the sides to begin with so cool your jets. Eventually the “sniffer” comes to the conclusion I am not a bomber and gives me a green light. I am allowed to put my clothes on and fetch all my crap, which is now in a big pile at the end of conveyor belt. People look at me suspiciously.
I head right to the bar for a quick nerve calming and celebratory cocktail. I have an $8.00 bloody Mary, which is actually very good. I start chatting with some guy who goes off on a tangent about his fear of flying. Frankly, I am not all that keen on flying either. Let’s face it, it is not a natural thing for humans to do. Any fall from over about 20 ft is going to turn me into a pile of shattered bones and jelly so it is really against the laws of self preservation to go up in a plane. The guy next to me continues on with a number of harrowing scare stories about various plane trips. Thanks for that. Yes I’ll have another.
Shortly after boarding. Some kind of high-pitched alarm sounds. It is the same sound that I am sure the pilot that flew that plane in to the Hudson River heard shortly after those geese entered his engines. It goes on and on. Eventually passengers start asking about it. I hear one of the crew tell someone it is the “hydraulics” Oh good, at least it is nothing important. After about 20 minutes the captain comes on saying that…and I am not going to get this exact…The secondary engine or generator is not working and we need this to start the plane. He goes on to tell us we are going to get “jumped” or some such thing to get the engines going. He then assures us that this does not impact the safety of the aircraft. We will be able to fly just fine once we figure out how to start these damn engines. Good to know.
As it turns out things end fine and I make to New Orleans about on schedule landing around 3pm. Just a quick side note here. As you’ll notice I am not going to spend anytime in New Orleans. I have already done that several years before. I will admit I very much enjoyed the city. If I had to live in a city I might well consider it as a place to be, but I have determined I am not a city person by nature. Cities just wear on my soul.
I have a nice little car, a dodge caliber. Sort of one of those new retro looking things. The one thing I don’t like is it has small windows in it. You can hardly see out the back. Looks like the modern version of the cars James Dean drove. If was either this car or a VW jetta. My son’s girlfriend has a jetta that he claims is the most uncomfortable car ever built so for that recommendation alone I choose the Dodge.