Notes from a Plane

Ugh. I feel like I have spent the last two and a half months on airplanes. See now why no new blog posts? I can't do it from the cabin of an aircraft! In honor of my hours in the sky, however, I thought I would share some of the random thoughts that pass through my brain as I travel through the clouds and the morass of humanity.

• Who decides what shops go into airport terminals? Who in the world buys a Fendi bag or a Burberry necktie or Beluga XXL caviar in an airport terminal?
• Yes, I am one of those people who could now recite the safety features along with the flight attendants. I must keep myself from snickering at my own little snide comments as they run through my brain during the instruction narration: "In case of a water landing, your seat cushion may be used as a flotation device..." Kathie adds in her head, "except for the ones that sink like rocks..."
• I also add the "Tommy Boy" comments in my head, like "And... what about seat belts? To fasten, take the little end and stick it in the big end and... you know what? If you guys don't know how to use a seatbelt, just ring your call button and Tommy will come back there and hit you on the head with a tack hammer."
• There is shocking little humanity in airports. After two longer-than-8-hour flights and a 6-hour layover in London, I landed in Chicago on my way home from Kenya. I had to collect my bags, go through customs, then recheck the bags on to Boise. I stood at the baggage carousel, marveling at its speed (you start to notice these things after a while), watching the people around me. After helping two people pull their luggage off the carousel without so much as a nod or thank you from them, being shoved out of the way by people who clearly felt they needed to be closer to the carousel than I, and listening to a woman's several small children behind me who were crying and yelling as they beat the snot out of one another, I actually prayed to God to show me a little humanity in this place. Suddenly there was another woman who needed help with getting her bags off the carousel. I gave her a hand, and she was so glad. On the train shuttle ride around to my next terminal, there was a woman with a cart full of luggage and a small baby in a one of those front packs on her stomach. This baby had had enough of traveling. She was just crying, and her mom was trying to console her, but also keep her own wits about her. When our stop finally came, I didn't even ask her--I just helped pull the front of her cart around to the door to help her get off the train before the door slammed shut on her and people piled in without letting her off. She just gave me the most grateful smile. It made my heart soar. Please don't confuse these incidents with me expressing a need to be appreciated--I really did just want to see people act like they had some nice inside them. I was also very happy to listen to a woman on the train who made nice chit chat with this poor mom traveling alone while her exhausted baby cried.
• And, oh yeah--"A" is for anal retentive! As in the "A" line for Southwest flights! Good night! I think the most uptight people I have ever met are the "A" group folks who fly Southwest. They guard their place in line like their very existence depends upon their position and order of loading into that plane. In Oakland, the boarding gates are too small and ridiculously crowded. On my last pass through there on the way to Ontario, I was in line right at the spot where the "A", "B", and "C" lines could not stay completely separate--there simply was not enough room for people to stand three abreast between the seats in the boarding area. I thought people were going to chew off their own limbs they were so annoyed that they could not make certain they were in EXACTLY the correct line. I spent a fair amount of time reassuring the people behind me that the "B" people would scoot right out of the way when they called the "A" group and some of the "A" people in the front of the line made room for people to move forward. Gee whiz! And I was a freaking "A" person! And I had "B" people helping me to convince the panicked lot behind me! Peanuts, anyone????
• I had my first Mormon friend chat on a flight from Dallas. After we chatted about all kinds of innocuous things, he discovered that I worked for a Christian evangelical ministry. He leaned right over asked, "So, what is it that evangelical pastors have against Mormons?" There's a conversation starter! It was actually a very good talk--he gave me an invitation card to call for my free DVD, and I gave him my business card to come to MAF for a tour ;)
• Brace yourself if you ever fly into Reno. Dear Heaven, it is the bumpiest ride in the world to get in or out of there--pass the sick sacks! Unless you take off from Ontario in the wind--now that's a lesson in trust!
• People, people, people--the arm rests are not really there for you to rest your arms. They are simply the polite dividers between you and me. They are not mine to rest my arms, nor are they yours--you may only touch them to adjust the channel and volume on your video screen. Then you get back into your own space!

Any questions? I actually have many more random thoughts as I walk through terminals, but blissfully, most of them dissipate before we touch down at the next airport. Now, fasten you seat belts, and please use the yellow oxygen mask if we experience a sudden loss of pressure in the cabin. The bag may not inflate, but oxygen will be flowing. Please affix your own mask before assisting others...