I overslept this morning and woke up twenty minutes before I planned to leave for La Guardia so I didn't get a chance to do anymore sightseeing. This was probably just as well since 1) I'm broke and 2) my feet are so blistered from walking around town in heels between meetings that I wasn't really in any position to tour around anyway.
I had a great cab driver on the way back to the airport who was very excited to hear that I was from Texas. So excited, in fact, that he forgot to turn on the meter until 10 minutes into our trip (yes, I paid him in full anyway). He has a brother in Dallas and wants to come visit Texas badly. He wanted to know how far it was to Mexico and so we had a nice conversation about the diversity of people who live in Texas. "Just like New York!" he said. I said, well, kind of. I told him that Vietnamese is the second most common non-English language and he went into a funny rant about the importance of speaking English. I think he said he was from Bali...he was really adamant about the need to speak English to make it in the States. Typically this kind of conversation makes me uncomfortable but this guy was seriously concerned with the fate of immigrant families vs. promoting the primacy of English so it was a good conversation.
My flight from NY to Saint Louis was flawless. On time. Quick. Good snacks. I somehow landed a seat in the middle of a Jewish family returning to St. Louis from NY where they'd visited to participate in some relative's Bar Mitzvah. The teenage kids were very excited to sit on a different row from their parents (i.e. "We're traveling alone") which was pretty endearing. I sat next to the mom and dad and the aunt sat in the row in front of us. As soon as the Fasten Seatbelts sign went off, the aunt stood up and discussed family gossip with the father for the rest of the flight. Talk about fantastic eavesdropping. The mom was such a spitting image of Diane Keaton that I had to keep convincing myself that the real Diane would never travel coach. Seriously, it was surreal...
My St. Louis experience was less pleasant. We got off the plane and entered a deteriorating terminal (eerily similar to the old Austin Mueller airport if you added about 5 years neglect) and I discovered that my connecting flight was on the opposite end of the airport. It wasn't a big airport, I had 1.5 hours to burn, and they had moving sidewalks (which I love) so it was no big deal.
I still had an hour to burn so I decided to pretend I was a working Joe business traveler and have a beer and some food. I've never bought alcohol while traveling before - either in airports or on the plane - so this was a fun indulgence. Vegetarianism has not yet hit Saint Louis. I had a ball park tub of neon-orange nachos (the only food I could find that remotely approached a meal) and Michelob Low Carb beer at the COCKTAILS lounge. It was a costly cultural experiment ($19!) but it turned out to be kind of fun to people watch.
Five minutes prior to scheduled boarding time I headed for my gate. Ghost town. I asked the attendant what was up and was told that our flight had been moved to the completely opposite side of the terminal. More moving sidewalks. I arrived, frightened that I'd missed my Group 3 boarding period, only to find a (comforting) crowd of Austinites pissed and a little bit weary of the airline's updates about our delays. "The crew has not yet arrived." Two twenty-two-ish looking fellows show up. "Our crew is working to clean up the plane to provide you with the best traveling experience!" Airline cleaners emerge from the tunnel, whisper to the gate attendant, and leave. "We're experiencing some maintenance problems - we appreciate your patience!" 15, 30 minutes pass. Our departure time passes. Ten minutes later, we're finally allowed to board.
My seat - on a tiny, 50-seat ERJ-145 mind you - is next to a 300+ lb nutcase who really wants to talk. A lot. Once we've established that we're both U.T. alumni I think I'm cool but NO, he wants to talk POLITICS. Crazy "don't you hate our University for being so liberal and God hating?" politics. Fantastic. This guy is taking up half my seat AND he's a complete moron.
Fifteen minutes pass. The outside temperature is 90 degrees, the cabin temperature is more like 95. The air conditioning is not working. The heavy-weight elderly woman in the seat in front of me leans back her chair which is broken so her entire weight rests on my right knee. After twenty minutes - you can't make this up - the captain comes on the PA to announce that "We're having to use an auxillary power source to jump start the right engine [which I'm seated about 36" from] so we're experiencing unanticipated delays. Thanks for flying American!"
Between Mr. Crazy and Mr. Captain-You're-About-To-Die, I couldn't take it any longer. I, quite loudly, unwittingly, voice my discomfort with a pilot who informs his passengers of their imminent doom. A college kid about my brother's age (22? 25?) voices his agreement. This opens up a conversation between him and my seat-mate, Mr. Obnoxious. Turns out Mr. Coed is a Baptist seminary student so they have plenty to talk about.
After a half dozen false starts, the engine finally catches. This is a little freaky but, honestly, the experience is so horrific that I've already convinced myself that I died in a crash on my last flight and went to hell: a claustrophobic, overheated airplane, filled to capacity, stuck next to a fundamentalist nut case. Our little plane finally takes off, almost a full hour behind schedule, and at this point I don't care if we crash. I just want off.
In reality, the flight went beautifully. Mr. Obnoxious continues to rant and rave about the supremacy of Southern Baptists so I decide to fake sleep. For two and one half hours. Dear readers, this is not easy. First, one must feign interest in the conversation and then appear to nod off. Next, the passenger should pretend to awake in a startled manner and profess the use of Benedryl. Crazy Southern Baptists will identify with this. From this point forward, you're scot free. Occasionally throw in an awkward spasm for maximum result. When we finally landed, Mr. O asked me if I was driving home. "You need to wake up, girl!" I told him I was taking a cab home on my "business account," afraid that he was going to try to offer me a ride.
Needless to say, my flight from Saint Louis was awful. At one point (when I was supposedly "asleep") Mr. O actually said that God put liberals on earth to challenge the righteous. Thing is, our young pilots kicked ass and managed to rush us to Austin only 10 minutes past our scheduled arrival time.
Posted by sarah at May 22, 2004 12:15 AM | TrackBack