Part 2: Houston, we have a problem..

My flight to Chicago could be called unnerving, at best. I had never realized how bumpy “floating on air” could be. Sudden shifts to the left and right and up and down kept me in an ultra-high sense of awareness. Each noise, soft and loud, had me inexplicably wondering which electronic and/or mechanical device had failed. I talked myself down by observing the passengers around me. They calmly chatted…they laughed and joked…they DOZED!!! It was all I could do NOT to scream at the top of my lungs, “HOW CAN YOU PEOPLE BE SO CALM WHEN I’M ABOUT TO DIE???!!!” OK, so I didn’t really do that good of a job of “talking myself down.” I did, however, accept the fact that certainly somebody would be panicking if there was a problem. I just found it hard to believe that all that noisy jostling on a flight was normal.
As we were closing in on Chicago, the flight attendant stopped at each seat to give those of us who had connecting flights some advice on how to get to the next plane. Unfortunately, the terminal to which I needed to waddle was a long walk AND a bus shuttle from where I would land.
As we made our descent, the loudest of all the unusual noises sat me up in my seat. It took me a few startled moments to figure out that what sounded like a fuel tank exploding was actually the landing gear (a few short feet directly below my butt) locking into place. I remember thinking that this sound should have actually been a pleasant experience for me. Landing gear locking into place is a GOOD thing.
When I finally felt the tires reconnect me with good old terra firma, the first thing I noticed were my muscles relaxing. I realized that those muscles had apparently been in a constant state of tenseness for the previous two hours.
I could only imagine how sore my sphincter would actually be the next day.
A few minutes after landing I found my mass of sweaty plumpness scurrying rapidly across the airport in an attempt to make my connecting flight. I arrived at the gate about eight minutes before takeoff, and I heard my name being badly mispronounced over the PA system. Hoping I was maybe getting a reprieve from the rest of my flight by former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, I approached the desk. A snippy young man said, “I would guess that they are waiting for you to board the plane.” He didn’t actually utter the word, “duh,” but it was most definitely implied.
Once again, as I boarded, I dutifully asked for my seat belt extender and once again a skinny person was saved by the flight attendant as I was re-located. I was just settling into my seat-and-a-half when a voice came over the loudspeakers.
“Unfortunately, before we can take off, we are going to have to do some redistribution of weight on the plane. We will need a few volunteers to move to another seat.” I fully expected to have the flight attendant point at me and say, “I need everyone to move to the front of the plane except you, sir. It seems we’re having trouble getting the nose of the plane back on the ground.”
I was relieved when in actuality a few of those uppity folks in the front of the plane had to move back with us commoners.
We took off from O’Hare at 3:24 p.m. and were due to land in Houston at 6:11. The plane and the flight were both about to head south, literally and figuratively.
Throughout the flight over the Great Plains the captain made periodic announcements that we were re-routing. We zigzagged east and west and back east again, dodging a string of storms that were assaulting the Heartland. We were well past our target time of 6:11 for landing in Texas when the captain informed us that severe weather continued to hover over the Houston airport. “We are told we will be in a holding pattern for at least an hour,” he said. His next statement brought me to the brink of projectile sweating: “By that time we will have some fuel issues.” He uttered this remarkable phrase as if he had just commented on a cute puppy.
This could only happen in a state that names their airport after George H.W. Bush. I just knew I was getting re-paid for all the times I took a shot at his son in my newspaper column.
He went on—“I fully expect that we will receive word in the next five or ten minutes that we are being re-routed to San Antonio.” Great—we were heading for the land of Red McCombs.
Fifteen minutes later, or as I call it—“T minus 45 minutes until we have fuel issues,” I was still waiting for an update on where and how we were going to crash, and was checking to see if I could tell from whence the oxygen masks would be dropping.
Finally, after another five minutes of agonizing, we got that update.
“Yeah, it seems that San Antonio could be out of our reach now.” At this point I may or may not have allowed an audible “gulp” to escape, depending on which witness you speak with.
“Instead, we are heading to New Orleans, which will not require as much of a fuel burn.”
Suddenly, we were headed for the Bayou State under the pretense that we might be able to get there before we ran out of fuel.
It took exactly 28 minutes (landing twelve minutes before we were to have “fuel issues”) to make the trip to New Orleans. According to the log on my company cell phone, I made the call from the runway in New Orleans to Kathy at 7:14 p.m. on Monday, April 27. About fifteen seconds after that call completed. I called Lyrae, my boss, just to thank her for sending me to Cajun country. As I heard her phone ringing through the speaker on my cell, I was reminded of those delivery room moments in the movies when the wife points to her tummy and screams at her husband, “LOOK WHAT YOU’VE DONE TO ME!!!”
Next week: Part III: Who would have guessed that the relaxing part of my flight was over?