Posted under Lost thoughts
As promised, the story of the airplane.
Our first two flights on our recent vacation were on US. Nice planes, very helpful staff, all in
all a pleasant experience. We visit, we go to the beach, everyone is happy. The flight back
home we ended up having to ride on an American jet.
17:30, we arrive at the airport, tanned and ready to sleep in our own beds. Noah has been a
real trooper up to this point, but the first thing out of his mouth that morning was “Noah
go home”. That should be all the setup you need to understand the volatility of the situation.
First things first, security checkpoint. Everything started off well until some skater punk dropped
his bag on Noah’s head. He just stares at us as I’m calming Noah down, no word of apology. Skater boy
accidentally got bumped into the conveyor system attached to the X-Ray machine as we walked by.
Darn those narrow hallways
.
I’m satiated and Noah is just fine.
We make it through the airport check in by the sheer grace of god.
TSA doesn’t speak a lick of english and instead decides that the best way to communicate that their is an issue with our luggage is by employing elaborate hand signals.
OK OK, sounds like bird? Two syllables?
Some showers slowed the plane down a bit and our flight was delayed until 20:00. No problem, we
came prepared. Out comes the DVD player, the headphones and the cheez-its. Baby meltdown
successfully contained.
Soon after the cheez-its ran out, we were on the plane. Noah curled
up next to Mommy and fell asleep pretty much immediately, so Jessi and I watched a couple of
Disney films over the shoulder of the passengers in front of us. Cute kids but terrible taste
in movies.
Then came the rain
About an hour away from home, Jessi starts getting this freezing cold stream of water running down her back. She does a really amazing job of restraining herself to keep from waking up Noah and we get the attention of the flight attendant. The flight attendant, fresh from mopping up puke from a kid that really shouldn’t have eaten so close to the flight, came back to investigate and informed us that the water was simply from the air conditioner.
Yes, replied Jessi, it’s very cold
It’s ok, It’s just the air conditioner, again replies the stewardess
It took a second flight attendant to grasp what our concern was and to provide us with a napkin.
A napkin that we’re supposed to hold over our head for an hour to contain the leak.
We stop the steward about 3 more times trying to offer any ideas that we can come up with to get them to provide us with a way to plug this hole. A towel, more napkins, anything! My rapidly dampening wife came up with a brilliant idea of using some of the medical tape from the first aid kit to graft an origami log of paper towels to the ceiling. This worked wonderfully
So wonderfully in fact, that the water in the ceiling was able to build up to an impressive enough level
that it began to come out of the air vents, not as a stream like before, but now propelled by recycled
vomit air and antiseptic spray. Plugging the ventilation system didn’t seem like a viable option, so Jessi
had to change seats for the last 40 minutes home. Noah slept through the whole thing.
And that my friends is why you ALWAYS bring your towel. Thank you Douglas Adams.