holy crap!

just days after i took my own flight on US Airways, (and freaked pretty much the whole time, since i am not the most relaxed airplane passenger) a Charlotte, NC-bound flight crashed into the Hudson river this afternoon!

this pic is pretty crazy, but as you can see, the passengers were safe and, aside from being really cold, are said to be in good health. apparently a flock of geese got sucked into the engines or something, causing both engines to fail! this is the kind of thing that is going to make it very hard for me to get on a plane anytime in the near future, but i'll try to keep it together. i'm just glad everyone is okay.

speaking of flying, i meant to blog about our flight home from Richmond the other night, when we made the mistake of patronizing the mickey mouse operation that is united airlines. the price was dirt cheap, but now i know why...

when we arrived at the airport in Richmond, we were pretty early, but when we went to the gate, we found them boarding a plane. i think they had actually made an announcement about this while we were going through security, but at that point i was too busy getting yelled at by the x-ray machine operator for not making sure my bags were fully on the belt before going through the metal detector. what is this, new york? anyhow, it turned out it was an earlier flight, which had been delayed from 3:30. (it was 7pm) but they had room, so they let us on. when we boarded, i noted the grim faces on my fellow passengers, all of whom were no doubt incensed at the fact that they now had waited, like, 5 hours to get to D.C. it's only an hour away by car, for christ's sake. that would have driven me over the edge.

as i settled into my seat, i became aware of the lone stewardess. she not only looked about 15, but proceeded to act the part, spending all of the time that we were pre-flight boarding laughing hysterically and flirting with the pilots. she also kept getting on the intercom and making these totally unnecessary, repetitive announcements in her affected-teenage-esque manner which made me really uncomfortable. i couldn't see the pilots from where i was sitting, but i hoped to god they were over-18.

anyhow, she continued to carry on this way for the duration, including the part where, during takeoff, something flew off a shelf in the little stewardess cubby and she sighed really loudly and rolled her eyes, as if to say " this fucking piece of crap airplane..." or at least that's what i imagined her saying, as i clutched the armrest and tried to hold back the vomit rising in my throat. there was also this really sketchy frat-boy type dude, who looked like he could totally be some kind of right wing gun nut, who kept getting up and making for the bathroom at high speed. maybe he had diarrea, but i couldn't shake the fear that he was plotting something more sinister for our tiny flight, due to my heightened anxiety. (some people profile arab-americans, i profile frat-boys. that's right.)

the only thing that saved me was that the flight was literally 20 minutes long. it took longer to get to the gate at Washington-Dulles(which may be the weirdest and most ass-backwardly planned airport ever) than it did to fly to D.C. again, had I been one of the delayed passengers, i probably would have hit that crazy stewardess over the head with whatever was handy, be it SkyMall or whatever. the plane was too small to fit anything other than a coat and small bag, so we were pretty much without any suitable weaponry, but still...

we passed her, again flirting with the pilots, once we (finally) de-boarded and entered the labyrinth-like terminal, and i wondered if someone might just break out of the line and wrestle her to the ground and start pummeling, but alas, i did not witness such an event. oh, and also, adding to my extreme flying paranoia was the fact that the pilot blamed the delay on a faulty plane but didn't actually manage to convince me that we were now on a different plane. i think it's important to note that information, for the benefit of people like me. otherwise, questions remain.

anyhow, now at Dulles, we undertook trying to find our next flight gate, which sadly, didn't take off till much later. Charles did get a voice mail telling him our Richmond flight had been delayed, so it turned out for the best that we wound up on the flight with the looney tune and co, even if it did just set us up for a marathon wait in DC.

previously, out on the tarmac, while we were waiting for our bags(more on this later, but suffice to say, the economic crunch coupled with airline bitchassedness has made the experience of flying commercial, even in the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, much like what i imagine it must be like to be on one of those third-world airplanes, with the livestock and shit. very, very disorganized, and most of the time, especially when you are say, standing on the tarmac at Dulles in the middle of the winter waiting for dudes in navy-blue reflective jumpsuits to bring you your bag while the refueling tanker pulls up just to your left, you feel like something is very, very wrong with the picture) we saw what appeared to be these giant rolling FEMA-trailers crossing from one long terminal building to another. naively, i thought that these must be for airport personnel, or machinery, but then i came to find out that they were actually for me, and you, and anyone else who needed to get from terminals "a"and "b" to terminals "c" and "d." wow. ok.

so we got in the rolling FEMA- trailer, which took us out past our previous aircraft, and over to the other "wing" of Dulles. here we sat around and watched CNN for two hours, while peeping the absolutely ridiculous get ups that people apparently feel comfortable wearing to the airport. the first winner of this contest, (the contest to determine who has set the bar the lowest concerning the clothes that they will not only wear out of the house, but are also prepared to die in, should they fall victim to a plane crash) were the very fat woman with severely damaged bleached-blonde hair, who had been out in the sun somewhere recently for way too long, and who donned a skintight, all-white lycra ensemble consisting of a tank top, mini-skirt and hoodie sweatshirt, with white socks and white sneakers. really brought out that sunburn, as well as the extraordinarily pronounced fat rolls which covered her entire body. this was a little too much for the latent- hangover-mixed-with-mild-air-sickness i was nursing at the time.

the co-winner was the young lady who decided it would be a good idea to wear white knee-high tube socks underneath those ridiculous, knee high timberland-type boot things(i say this as if i have seen others of this variety, but the truth is, these took it much further than i have ever seen) so that the top of the tube sock was visible over the boot, and then finished off the look with one of those catholic school skirts. i can't imagine what this chick was seeing when she looked in the mirror. it was beyond all comprehension.

finally, we boarded our plane, which, i unhappily noted upon entering the cabin, was really, really old. it was dirty, the writing on the overhead compartments was all worn off...you get the idea. Charles tried to cheer me up by calling it "sturdy," but i knew the truth. shit was OLD, son. real old. speaking of real old, the senior citizen seated behind us fell asleep as soon as her seat belt was buckled and started doing the "snuffalupagus" snore... you know, with the whinnying sound? her husband didn't deem it necessary to alert her, although i have a feeling she wouldn't have cared, and he probably knows better anyhow. when i'm that age, if i am still getting on planes, i won't care if i snore on some packed flight from DC to NY on an old-ass plane. i'll probably punch someone in the face if they try and complain about it, too. so i can't really fault the old bag.

for some reason, the co-pilot decided to make the pre-flight announcements from the passenger cabin, rather than the cockpit(the intercom was broken, maybe? it was really old...) and that turned out to suck because i have never seen someone look, sound and act, more nervous in my life. i am pretty sure he was visibly shaking. he was definitely sweating, and his voice quivered as he "welcomed" us to our NY bound flight. i just closed my eyes at that point. closed my eyes, and listened to the soothing sounds of snuffy, coming from the seat behind me...

the final test of the journey came as we once again lined up to wait for our "carry-on" bags, this time in that crazy little tunnel that they (sometimes) attach to the plane so you can get to the terminal. the whole frickin' flight was lined up in there waiting and then they just started throwing bags through the door, so it became a sort of luggage feeding frenzy. in this midst of it all, this old lady in a giant fur coat was being wheeled off the plane in a wheel chair(why she couldn't make it down that little hallway, i don't know. she could walk, i saw her.) the dude wheeling it was about 4 foot 2 and weighed about 100 pounds (old lady weighed considerably more) and he was trying to push the wheelchair uphill and hit one of the raised floor parts, jostling her forward, and she screamed really loud. my nerves were kinda shot by then, so i envisioned myself smacking her across the face to try and calm myself down, while poor Charles fought valiantly for our bags.

all this so we could get, like, 50 bucks off the cost of the flight... never again, united, never again!

oh, and about the bag-checking thing: so now all the airlines are charging you 15 bucks for the first checked bag and then like 25 for any additional. which BLOWS, obviously. but you can have one carry-on, plus like, a purse or whatever. so we carried everything on, but when you get to the plane, it's too small for your shit, even the stuff that they say is regulation-size. so you wind up having to give it to them anyhow, so they can put it under the plane! and then you also wind up, as i mentioned, standing in the freezing cold getting your hearing damaged by jet-engines while angry airline dudes throw your bags at you! just check the damn things for free! wtf???