I'll Take a Double

So on the flight home from Thanksgiving, we had a little bit of technical problems. It was a real hoot. Here is what happened.

The flight is fine, we get a little snack, The Baby is playing on my lap and it is all good.

Then, we start to descend. Nothing major, but it was enough of a drop, and fast enough, that all 6 infants on the flight can't regulate their ears and start screaming.

All at the same time.

It was kinda like that Family Guy episode with the four singing Peters singing Christmas songs. Except less singing and more ear shattering screaming....and not as much harmony as parents trying (unsuccessfully) to quiet the babies in the six row radius we have all been seated in. But just like that.

So we hang out at the lower altitude for a little bit, and we see the flight attendant put her little cart away and take her seat. We then start to ascend a smidge thinking that we are going to be flying into a storm or something and the pilot was getting around it.

Not so much.

After we regain our altitude, the pilot decides to rip out the landing gear. Which, at 30,000 feet, sounds like the wing has just been ripped from the side of the plane.

I start kinda freaking out but The Husband tells me some BS about the flaps and whatever. I know he is full of it, but I appreciate the effort, so I let it go. Plus, in his head, I can see the mouse turning that all the years of watching uber nerdy airplane shows on the military channel is finally gong to pay off. And I don't want to ruin that for him. Even in a crisis, I am a giver.

So we are hanging out, the noise is unbearable and I am getting more and more, apprehensive.

Then, the pilot does an abrupt 180 and we are going the other way. It really appears that I am the only one who is even alarmed by this.

The bitchy mom three rows behind me is still cussing out her husband, who is sitting three rows ahead of her, for not being able to find her wireless card.

The couple behind me are still reciting their lines for something. (Although I think their lines should have been "No we shouldn't have gotten married, because you are actually my sibling"...yeah, they looked, um, well, off).

So I decide to call the flight attendant and find out what is going on. Her name is "Jessica" but I am pretty sure her name ends in an "i" because she just seems like the type of girl with a name that ends in "i". Like a "Brindi", or "Cami" or "Tiffani". You know who I mean. She is of no use to me, giving me some excuse of "running some tests and that is all she knows". Damn you Miffi.

Then the pilot comes on the PA and I almost totally lose it. The guy is so middle eastern that I am shocked he is actually a pilot, and not the owner of a shipping store/dry cleaners that also dabbles in air-terrorism. I could hardly understand what he was saying. Every other word sounded like "Puff-puff. Ding-ding." Yeah, I did. But it's my blog and I can racially profile if I want to.

Maybe, and this is just a suggestion, but maybe, it is a better idea to have the co-pilot, John from Utah, make the announcement that we have a failed hydraulic pump and have to make an emergency landing in Nashville to "fill out some paperwork". Huh. Just a thought.

So we land, get the pump changed and it is all good.

Except, the bitchy mom behind me immediately starts to gripe to her husband that "the kids are really,really thirsty. We didn't get anything to drink. Go get us something." I wanted to slap her and hug him.

But he ended up getting his....as did The Husband and I.....and that would be the complimentary drinks (Ah, thank you Punjab).

In the end, tough, the joke was on us. When we finally landed and I needed to go to the bathroom, it was so backed up it resembled the windshield washer bucket at the gas station and not an airplane bathroom.