I flew back to San Francisco today. I asked one of the secretaries at my office to book me a flight out of Newark through D.C. that would get me home at a reasonable time. What does she give me? A 6:25 am departure out of Newark arriving 25 minutes before my connecting flight. Thanks bitch. This meant I had to leave at 5am. I stepped out the front door and was met with humidity that had already crept past 70%--perfect for wool slacks and a thick cotton dress shirt. I am dumb.

Adding to the comfort level of my trip home was a packed 60-seat plane the size of a Plymouth Voyager. If the Nazis had passenger jets in 1941, they would have used the plane I was on to transport the Jews to the concentration camps. We were crammed in that damn plane like our last names ended in "-stein." I hadn't been that uncomfortable since I was awoken by a New York City police officer asking me why I was throwing liquor bottles and seat cushions out of a moving RV.

I was one of the lucky ones, though. I had an aisle seat! That meant only my entire left arm was jutting out into the aisle and only my entire right leg was jammed into the seat in front of me. Space was so tight that I had to type this like I had flipper-arms, with my elbows attached to my sternum. I was a sexy manimal.

If that wasn't bad enough, our departure was also delayed by 20 minutes. There were two people to blame for this added bonus: some skinny douchebag in a knockoff Armani suit and a fat half-breed with a trombone. I can't fault the skinny douchebag too much, however. His secretary called him as he boarded to inform him that his connecting flight was canceled and there were no other flights going to his destination through Dulles today. What I can fault him for, though, is standing stalk still in the middle of the fucking aisle while taking his phone call. It's not like the plane didn't already feel like we were all bits of meat fighting for position inside a sausage-casing. I honestly didn't even notice the traffic jam he was causing until someone behind me yelled, " HEY SEACREST! SITDOWN OR GET OFF THE FUCKING PLANE!" God bless sweaty angry Italian women.

The half-breed was truly to blame for our extra "together-time" on the ground. At 6'3" and 300+ lbs, this guy was probably half black, half Guamanian. I could tell he was Guamanian because he smelled like salami...don't ask me, man. It's not my fault pacific islanders love processed smoked meats. Half-Breed looked like he could be Adam Duritz' older brother. In a certain light though, he looked like the bastard son of a black man in the Air Force who lost a bar bet and went hoggin.'

He sported long, braided black hair that hung down to his ass and Fu-Man-Chu moustache-goatee combo a la Tank Abbott. He wore TIGHT brown shorts, top-sider deck shoes, a gold Hawaiian shirt, and a large gold chain with attached gold conch shell. This Guamanian nightmare was a P-I-M-P...until he decided to bring a fucking trombone onto this Plymouth Voyager with wings.

If you've ever been on a small jet you know that the overhead bins are remarkably narrow--so narrow, in fact, that they preclude the secure storage of, oh, I don't know...maybe A FUCKING TROMBONE! Well Manila Gorilla insisted it should fit because it fit on his last flight--A 777 FROM LONDON!! I was so stunned by this Grand Canyon-sized leap of logic that I couldn't speak. I was unaware that people this dumb did not die in childbirth. The flight attendant, of course, told him she would have to check it for him and, naturally, he refused. This little dance of the morons was what really added twenty minutes to Auschwitz Airlines flight 1939.

I now officially hate Guam. I am going to make it my life's work to eradicate the "Pacific Islander" bubble from all standardized forms. You delay my flight, I erase your cultural and ethnic identity. Fucker

________________________________

Power walking through Dulles to get to my connecting gate, I crossed the path of a father and son in full Boy Scout uniform. I probably wouldn't have noticed them--or at least found the scene somewhat endearing--had the son not been at least 18 and didn't have a slightly modified Hitler-stache...EXACTLY LIKE HIS FATHER! The father was carrying a Boy Scout backpack over one shoulder and the son was sporting all his merit badges. I'm sorry, but 7:30am on a Tuesday is too early for that much unintentional funny.

I tried to walk past quietly on the way to my gate. I failed. Luckily I was walking next to a guy who saw exactly what I did. I turned to ask him a question. LOUDLY:

"Hey dude, I didn't know the annual NAMBLA convention was held in D.C.?"

We both laughed but the Boy Scouts didn't notice. This didn't sit well with my walking partner, so he pulled out a Daisy Cutter. He pulled some magazines out of a plastic shopping bag he was carrying, handed them to me, ran ahead, turned around, stopped the Boy Scouts dead in their tracks, opened the bag wide in front of them and yelled at the top of his lungs, "TRICK OR TREAT!"

Now keep in mind, this is the United terminal at Dulles International Airport on a Tuesday morning. It was not sparsely populated. Everyone--and I mean EVERYONE--stopped what they were doing to turn and look. I thought the father was going to punch this guy. Instead, the son choked up and asked 'what the man meant.' (Holy Shit! Were they part of a "special" troop? Do they even have those? Were those merit badges for things like "Not Shitting Yourself for a Week" or "Tying Your Shoes without Drooling Down Your Leg?" Oh man, this could rank right up there with that time in Vegas I watched tard cheerleading on ESPN.) As the son looked to his dad for reassurance, Trick-or-Treat guy fell to the ground in fits of laughter, mumbling something about always being prepared. There are some really fucked up people in this world...

_________________________________

I'll make this part short if for no other reason than I have neither the energy nor the intestinal fortitude to recount in full the issues I had with my flight into San Francisco.

I will start by mentioning that United flight 869 from Dulles to San Francisco offers connecting service to Hong Kong. That means lots of Chinese people--in this instance lots of Chinese nationals returning home. Do you know what's worse than a room full of Chinese nationals who had to get up so early that they didn't have time to shower before leaving the family shipping container? A PLANE full of Chinese nationals who had to get up so early that they didn't have time to shower before leaving the family shipping container. Do you know what's worse than that? SITTING NEXT TO TWO OF THEM! I've never beckoned the sweet release of death so earnestly.

There's a simple equation that explains where I'm coming from:

Recycled plane air + Chinese national stench + airline omelet breakfast = PLEASE KILL ME!

Posted by nils at 9:12 PM

Print Friendly · Digg it · del.icio.us · StumbleUpon · Netscape