Did You Hear The One About The Girl Who Was Afraid To Fly?

So, here’s how the story goes…

Friday afternoon, slightly after 3pm, KH dropped me off at the airport. I always like to get there early because 90% of the time I have to go through the search process a couple of times just trying to get on the plane. When I got to the check-in counter, the nice lady there informed me that my 5:02pm flight was delayed and would be departing at 5:30pm instead. To me, this was no big deal.

I managed to get through checking my luggage without having to stand there while a total stranger when through my undies. Since I had a sore throat and was stressed about the whole flinging myself through the air in a metal tin that should not be able to defy gravity, I stopped at the deli and bought a Blizzard rip-off. I wanted the cookie dough or the Oreo one but they were completely out of those. So, I had Butterfinger reluctantly. Strangely, this kept me calm as I waited in line at Security and amazingly I did not have to go through the metal detector more than once, nor was I submitted to having that radar machine waved all over my body. My purse however had to go through the x-ray machine twice. I guess the mirror, the Palm Pilot, the Cel Phone, the pager, and the Camera through them off. Heh.

So, I wandered to my gate, keeping an eye out for a free electric outlet to plug my laptop in so I could work on a web design. However, apparently the Portland Airport staff either has really long extension cords or battery operated vacuums because I could only find two plates (each with two plugs) and they were being used by a man with a travelling office (I think he may have had a fax machine), a girl charging her cel phone, and two girls trying to finish their law school homework. All of these people were sitting on the floor, grouped around the vending machines in a very uncomfortable manner. So I sat down and glared at the girl charging her cel phone until she left and then I acquired her space.

Mind you that around 5:30pm, it was starting to be evident that my plane was not at the airport as of yet to board. In fact, I became aware that there were an awful lot of people in the gates and some of them were talking about how they’d been waiting for hours. In fact, the man with the portable office was trying to get on another flight.

By 6pm, it was clear that something was very wrong. A chat with one of the folks behind the gate desk revealed that my plane was still in Washington, D.C. waiting to take off. Apparently for some unknown reason, Boston was not allowing anyone to fly in their air space and this screwed up the flight schedules of the entire eastern seaboard.

I tried many times to get ahold of N2 but I didn’t catch her at work and her cel has been disconnected. I left 5 to 10 messages on her home machine.

Strangely, I wasn’t panicking, which was kind of new. I just sat with my laptop, working on a web design, enjoying my Twizzlers. In a way, it was a bit surreal.

A storm moved into Portland about the time that planes started landing again. The storm was so bad that the Fire Dept wouldn’t let the planes fuel or load luggage or take off for some time.

Still, my plane had not arrived.

It did finally arrive after 7:30pm. We were allowed to board around 8pm. There was still a storm and it was a crowded flight as Independence Air tried to merge two flights into one.

Interestingly, the pilot came out and made an announcement appologizing for the delay and assuring everyone that we’d be on our way in a short bit but they wanted to wait for the weather cell to pass (why are groups of terrorists and bad weather called cells?). Then he suddenly seemed surprised that we were fueling in the thunder and lightning storm, but assured us all that we would be fine — this was immediately followed by the loud boom of a nearby lightning strke.

I sat in my seat, gripping the arm rests, knowing for certain that I was going to die and that no one would know that I predicted it if I did.

But as you can see, I made it to D.C. alive and well and only 2 1/2 hours late. Sadly, N2 had been waiting in the airport all of that time because it was too far to go home and then come back again. What a great friend!

I’m sure I’ll write more about the trip later…

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