The Friendly Sky’s
About a month ago my husband and I went to see our daughter. When I made our flight reservations I was so excited knowing that we were going to visit that I didn’t pay that much attention to little details such as what time we had to be at the airport and how long our layover in Atlanta would be. We ended up having to be at the airport at 4:00 am and our layover was 30 minutes long.
So we get to the airport at 4:00 am and since we got our boarding passes the day before we were able to check our bags at the curb. We head straight for security. We were commenting on how fortunate we were that the line wasn’t very long. We do the usual strip down and got into line to go through the metal detector. They were having everyone go through what I like to refer to as the “naked x-ray machine”. There are about 30 of us in line waiting patiently to enjoy this experience. I get pulled out of line and told to go through the metal detector, what a relief. My stuff goes through x-ray with no problems, I’m now thinking “if the rest of the trip goes this smooth it’s going to be amazing and the first for me”. Shortly after this we get to our gate with plenty of time to spare.
Finally we start being boarded on to the plane. We sit down and I look in the pocket in front of me to ensure that the barf bag is there, I don’t have one and neither does my husband, but I figure everything else is going so smooth I’m not going to need it. I get air sick real easy and I like to know that it is there is I need it. I set the screen in front of me to watch the flight across the United States and pull out the Air Mall magazine and start looking through it to see what they have that I can’t live without. We bring to taxi to the run way for takeoff. The takeoff was so smooth I was amazed. I didn’t feel sick or anything.
The pilot announces that we can now turn on our electronic devises so I turn on my Kindle so that I can read a book and my husband gets out his iPod so that he can listen to music. Everything is going so smooth what could possibly go wrong? All of a sudden we hit the worst turbulence that I have ever felt. I begin trying to focus on the person in front of me while taking deep breaths because I have no barf bag. I look at my husband who is busy playing his air guitar along with his air drums and I’m thinking “thanks for comforting me”. While I’m trying to keep breakfast down I hear a woman a few rows behind me scream our “sweet Jesus we are all going to die”, my anxiety level went through the roof. I have never seen flight attendants move so fast. They were at this woman’s side in seconds trying to calm her down, but of course at this point she is now praying loud and getting louder by the second. My husband finally looks at me and realizes that I’m about to bring breakfast up and I really need his help. He puts down his air drums along and holds my hand and reassures me that we will be ok that it’s just pot holes in the sky, which always works for me. The turbulence lasted for about 45 minutes.
We then hit a strong head wind and we were due to land after our connecting flight was scheduled for takeoff. We discover that a large group of us, there were nine of us, were headed for the same location on the same flight. The flight attendant was able to find out what gate we needed to go to and since we were such a large group they actually held the plane for us. At first I was impressed until I discovered that the plane was so small that our group took up half the plane.
Once we landed we had to run from the A gates to the D gates, the prayers worked and we had a smooth landing. The group took off on a mad dash with the understanding that whoever got to the gate first was to tell them that the rest were close behind. We had to take the train to get to our destination gate. We get on this train just as the door was closing. The train takes off and I fall back on my husband who pushes me forward which pushes me into the arms of a complete stranger who attempts to help me to stand up. We get to the B gates and people get off and on and once again we take off. I promptly fell back and once again my husband pushes me forward where I land on the same stranger. At this point I’m so embarrassed and not sure what to say so I just look at him and say “we have got to stop meeting like this people are going to start talking” he busts up laughing and agrees with me. What a relief that he got my sense of humor. At the next stop I held on to the pole so hard that I thought that I was going to rip my arms off when the train took off, but I managed to stay upright. We finally get to the D gates and the mad rush begins.
We run to our gate knocking over several people in the process. We get on the plane and find our seats. I get all situated, look to see if there is a barf bag and sit back to relax. Just as I got comfortable the man in front of us turns around and starts talking to us. As I looked up to talk to him I realized that he was the man that I had fallen into on the train. I was embarrassed but tried to play it off as though that kind of stuff happens all the time to me. I hope he believed me.
Just getting to my daughters was quite an adventure and I look forward to doing it all over again, of course I would like to spend a little more time in the Atlanta airport.
