Once Upon a Midnight Dreary...

As I can’t sleep on planes, there’s only so much I can do to keep myself occupied in the sky. Therefore, you get stuck with another post. I’m on the way back from Las Vegas, crammed behind a couple of folks who are not from around here. Here being North America. The lady was kind enough to recline her seat while my computer was resting on the tray table, nestled tightly under the seat. I discovered that a Toshiba laptop can successfully prevent a Boeing 737 passenger seat from reclining by acting in a manner similar to your foot when a young child is trying to get through a door that you have pressed your foot up against the base of in an effort to entertain yourself and frustrate said child.

I’m not sure if the thoughts in my head are going to present themselves well in paragraph form, so hold on tight and leave your grammar standards behind...

On the flight out, I posted up on my window seat, and hoped for a solo flyer to settle into the aisle seat, thus raising my chances of having an empty middle seat. The other three guys who I was traveling with all filed into one row, so, naturally, having an empty middle seat beside me would pay mental dividends as well, knowing they were packed in like proverbial sardines while I was rocking two wind tunnel vents.

My plan worked. Some lady came and sat down in the aisle seat, and no one dared venture between us. Perhaps this was due to our combined leg hair, which was at least 1.75 times my own amount. Now, I’ve never been one to complain about the TSA screening process. I’m all for not being vaporized between point A and point B, but on this trip, I got a little annoyed. In reverse order and avoiding any foreshadowing techniques learned in high school literature class, in the Vegas airport on the way home, I walked through the metal detector (no body scan this time), and it beeped. I knew I was clean and free of any metals.

The TSA agent reassured me of this, “Ok, you didn’t set it off, but you’re a random. Please step in here.”

No idea what a random is, but here was a plexi-glass cage. I stepped in and waited for another agent. My travel companions continued on their journey. Two minutes later, TSA 007 shows up. He asks which tubs are mine on the conveyor belt. I tell him. He goes over to them, grabs my shoes, and tells me to grab the rest and follow him. We go behind the scanners, and he opens a cabinet. He then proceeds to wipe my shoes down with either one of those wipes you get with chicken wings, a maxi-pad, or a temporary tattoo. After a 1.5 second wipe, he hands me my shoes and sends me on my way. So, if one of those shoe-bomber guys is reading this, please fill your bathtub with sarcasm, submerge yourself, and accept my heartfelt gratitude. Jerk.

Ok, so that was TSA point one. Back to the original flight out… As soon as my row-mate sits down, she begins knitting or crocheting (I hope that’s how you spell crow-shay-ing), I don’t know the difference. Which brings me to this question: How come there are several black and white pictures of me au natural posted on a TSA body scan reader’s closet wall while this lady can get two spears into a plane? Apparently, knitting requires a lot of extension of the left arm towards the closest human’s right eye.

So that was the first leg of the flight out. That flight went from Nashville to Chicago. Time in the air: 1 hour. Ground gained on Vegas: none. Second leg was a full flight. My seatmates were talkative. In fact, I thought they were friends until they introduced themselves to each other 3 minutes into the conversation. They introduced themselves to me. We chatted. Some of you know me well, and know that I love to chat with strangers, but for everyone else reading this, planes were not meant to be a real-life session of chat roulette. I’m not complaining though, they were nice girls, and they stopped talking at 10,000 feet. That should be the 11th commandment.

Two shining moments from flight two :

One, the flight attendant came by with snack options. When presented with cheese crackers, golden oreos, pretzels, and peanuts, middle seat asked, “Do you have any gluten free options?” Middle seat and the flight attendant finally decided that peanuts were probably gluten free. Green light.

Two, if you ever find yourself wondering if the big bang theory could really hold up, take an evening flight southwest (I meant the direction, but I recommend the airline as well) and sit on the right side as you look towards the front. From 35,000 feet above the ground, I watched the sunset in the distance while a thunderstorm went on below. It was one of the coolest things I’ve seen. Then, on the flight back, I watched the lightning below as the stars decorated the sky above. So for that, a sarcasm-free thanks, God.

Tune in next time for the actual Vegas part... Well, the parts I can write about.