|
This actually happened, in more-or-less the order described:
For reasons which escape me, I had booked the trip from LAX to Baltimore leaving Los Angeles at 11:30 AM. That got me back into Baltimore at about 9:45 PM.
I went out of Baltimore because going out of Reagan National was about a $1,200 fare. The Baltimore fare was about $500.
Go figure.
Dana Point is about midway between Los Angeles and San Diego. Know what else is about midway between Los Angeles and San Diego? JOHN WAYNE AIRPORT in Orange County.
Typical of me, I didn't look at a map until Wednesday; and when I realized that John Wayne would be a much closer airport I found that (a) the fares were about the same but there would be a $100 change fee - which was doable; but (b) first class was sold out going out and coming back.
LAX it was.
I woke up at about 4:00 AM PST because I was trying to stay on Eastern Time. Also, because I am a big, BIG party guy, I had gone to sleep at 9:00 pm PST.
I drove up to LAX - about an hour-fifteen at 5:30 on a Sunday morning and, having dropped off the car and Hertz vanned it to the terminal I got into the FIRST CLASS/MEDALLION CURRENT DAY TRAVEL line.
As usual about half the groups in the line pretended they didn't know it was the FIRST CLASS/MEDALLION CURRENT DAY TRAVEL line and tried to have the ticket agent - who is there to take care of my personal needs - check them in anyway.
Much heavy sighing among the real FIRST CLASS/MEDALLION travelers finally resulted in a red-coat checking everyone's tickets to make certain they qualified.
I was rebooked on a flight leaving at 8:30 instead of 11:30 and I made my way through security (pulled out my briefcase for a bomb check) to the Crown Room.
It was now 6:35. I gave my standby ticket to the agent in the Crown room and asked if there was an even earlier flight I might take. Tap, tap, tap and she said there was a flight at 7:00 but she couldn't put me on the waiting list within a half hour of take off.
"Is there room in first class?"
"Yes."
Bing-OH. I hied it down the elevator to the gate and presented myself at the gate to rebook my rebooked ticket.
Long story short: I made the flight but had to sit in a bulkhead seat. On a longish flight (this was about four hours) I don't mind the bulkhead because there's plenty of time to get your stuff out of the overhead.
I got Mullings finished just as the batteries in my computer ran out, so I watched about half of "Minority Report" and slept through the rest.
I got to Atlanta and that's when the fun began.
-----
I went to the Crown Room to recharge the batteries in my laptop and have a cup of coffee. My flight was to leave at 3:40 PM so I had about an hour.
At 2:50 I decided to make my way to the gate (A 20) to present my standby boarding pass. At gate A 20 I found that the flight had been moved to B 21.
Good thing I went early, I think to myself. I go down into the "Transportation Mall" and walk to the next concourse.
I presented my boarding pass to the guy at the gate and he said they would begin clearing standbys in about five minutes. I strolled around the grounds until I felt at home and went back.
I handed him my standby boarding pass and he gave me a real boarding pass for seat 28C.
Wh- What?
"Is there any space in first class?" I asked.
"Were you standing by for first class?"
"Is there any space in first class?" I rephrased.
"Yes."
"Then I was standing by for first class."
Bulkhead. Again.
They start boarding first class and a bunch of people get into the line who clearly are not sitting in first class. How do I know? I just do.
An elderly woman with a cane literally pushed me out of her way, stood in front of the ticket podium and demanded to know where her wheelchair was.
"You can sit over there and I'll call for one," the agent said.
"I'm standing now and I don't want to sit."
First class boarding was halted for reasons which were not explained. About five minutes later a guy in a pilot's outfit holding a bag from McDonald's showed his ID and went down the jetway.
We had to wait for the Captain to get his lunch.
Through this mini-series I was in alpha-wave mode and waited patiently for my turn to show my picture ID along with my boarding pass.
I did, and got sent to the screener table.
There were three screeners there and, as I put my stuff on the table, they seemed like they were ready for a fight.
I guess they didn't recognize my alpha-wave mode.
I said, with a smile, that I knew they weren't going to leave without me and I would just as soon chat with three nice people like them than try to make conversation with the other people in first class who try too hard to convince each other that each is more important than the other.
I really did say that. I didn't mean it, but I said it.
Pat-pat-pat. Wand-wand-wand. Everything pulled out and put back, and I made my way to seat 1C.
I put all my stuff in the overhead and sat down.
I got up to get my MP3 player and my headphones out of my manly shoulder bag. I sat down.
I got up to turn off my cell phone. I sat down.
I got up to get a different SD memory card because I had just listened to the songs on the card that was in the MP3 player. I sat down.
I got up to get my very excellent Bose noise-canceling earphones out of my briefcase. I don't take them with me on a series of short flights, but as I had them, I thought I would use them. I sat down.
Every time I did this I had to open the overhead on the opposite side, and then close it again. The couple sitting under this particular bin were looking at me like I might just be fluent in Arabic.
I FINALLY settled in and realized I didn't have book 24 (of 25) of the Bolitho Naval historical novel series so I got up AGAIN, dug it out of my briefcase, and sat down for keeps.
My preflight checklist is way more complicated than something like the space shuttle.
I looked up from my book and realized that two female flight attendants were kneeling next to the guy behind me and making cooing and billing sounds.
What th'?
I turned around and one of the flight attendants said he had a little dog under my seat.
I got up on my knees, looked over the top of the seatback to the guy behind me and said, "How much for the dog?"
We were taxiing out and one of the flight attendants was picking up plastic cups from our pre-flight drinks when she lost her balance and fell into the lap of the guy sitting across the aisle from me.
"Hey!" I said. "Now THESE are the friendly skies!"
We were holding short of the runway when a pilot flying deadhead walked up to the flight attendants and began whispering. One of them picked up the phone, buzzed the cockpit and the deadhead pilot began to talk to the captain.
I heard the words, "burning rubber."
These are not two words you want to hear on an airplane. Or anywhere else, for that matter.
Much talking and walking back and forth - it turned out there were TWO deadheading pilots sitting in row 4.
Now, one of them came back up and I heard the words "Smells like acetone."
Acetone? You mean highly flammable acetone?
I am now on full alert. I have watched the safety film a million times and I know that the nearest exit might be behind me. However, as I am in the first row, the nearest exit is about six feet off my port bow.
Not only that, but I think I can smell the acetone. And it's giving me a headache. I start to think I'm going to be as sick as a passenger on a cruise ship of Panamanian registry.
I also checked out the equipment bin: And located the fire extinguisher.
The guy in the seat under the bin with my bags in it got up, opened the bin, and sniffed my bags.
"Do you think I got on the plane with either burning rubber or acetone in my bags?"
Another woman said, "Dirty underwear."
"Pooh-pooh undies and acetone don't generally go together," I said haughtily. Either they got the Young Frankenstein reference, or they didn't. I wasn't helping them.
I was at the point of trying to decide whether to try and grab my computer before I went down the emergency slide when the pilot came on and said we were going back to the gate to have the maintenance folks take a look.
We got to the gate area and waited for nearly 20 minutes for a gate open up.
I'm thinking about whether they really can't find a gate, or they were waiting to see if flames shoot out of the top of the plane before they let it in next to all those other planes.
We finally pulled into a gate and the maintenance guys got on and started poking around
Then they starting pulling the ceiling down:
At last they decided whatever it was, it was gone now, so they buttoned everything back up and we were pushed back away from the gate about an hour late.
As we taxied out again, the pilot came on and said he thought we might have picked up a whiff of tire smoke which got into the air conditioning intake which, he said, "is not that unusual."
I wondered how unusual it was for the tire smoke to only come out of the air conditioning vents in row 4, but by
this time the cockpit door was closed and I, frankly, was intimidated about getting back up out of my seat.
Click here to return to the Secret Decoder Ring page
|
