Contemplation

Yesterday was the worst travel day in my entire life. I've been on the road for more than 25 years and yesterday took the cake.

On Wednesday, I awoke to a full day of exciting activities with customers, having been asked to babysit a problem-child during a sales walk thru. I dilligently patted this guy on his little head and made him feel like his little project was the most important thing on my agenda. Yippee...

Then I had a quick dinner and got on a United flight to Boston via San Fransisco. Full. Sitting next to an overweight moose with an IQ of about 7. (Seriously, the arm rest for the row in front of us was in the UP position. Bullwinkle decided to push the buttons to see if he could get the channels to change on the TV. I'm not shitting you.)

Then I switched planes in SF to head to Boston. Guess what? There were twenty 12 year olds on a field trip to the national Scrabble tournament on board. I took a melatonin and still didn't get any sleep. 12 year old girls go to the bathroom CONSTANTLY.

So I arrived in Boston at 7:00 AM with enough time to get my luggage, rent a car, check in, shower, and get to the class I was there to take. Class was supposed to start at 10:00 AM and I arrived at the office at 9:45.

Then I discovered that we wouldn't be starting until 11 to 11:30 because the other student was running late. OK, shit happens.

Class consisted of NOTHING. No printed materials, no curriculum, no diagrams, no powerpoint presentation, NOTHING. "You guys play around with the machine and let me know if you have any questions." is not a class. This bullshit lasted until 5 PM when I declared myself DONE.

I was exhausted, so I ate and went to bed at 7 PM. My body clock got me up at 3:30 AM Boston time, so I did emails and generally worked for about an hour, then I got ready and went to the airport so I could avoid all the inbound rush-hour traffic headed for Boston. I had breakfast in the airport and boarded my plane home at 8:30 AM Boston time. We departed a few minutes after the scheduled 9 am departure for Chicago.

Guess what? I was sitting aisle next to the two fattest lesbians I've ever seen. These girls were HUGE. I mean "seatbelt extension" huge. Yeah, both armrests were up in our row because they couldn't fit in thier seats with the armrests down. My body is 15 inches wide at the hips. I had 14 inches to sit in. No, the girls weren't just going to Chicago. They were going all the way to Seattle and there were no empty seats on the plane. This was gonna suck.

Thank goodness they were nice and sorta fun. Otherwise I would have had to deflate one of them.

Ok, yadda yadda, off to Chicago we go. Landing, taxi in, get off, stretch my cramped legs, and then back on the plane to play "Sardine Boy" with the tunas.

Moulded earphones in my ears, trying to zone out so I can survive the crush, I hear the captain announce that we'd levelled off at 36,ooo feet and that he was turning off the seatbelt sign... Pleasant music lulling me to sleep..... la la la la la......and then the voice of a professional (but stressed) flight attendant:

"Ladies and Gentlemen, it's obvious that the smoke alarms are all going off and that the cabin is filling with smoke. I need EVERYONE to start feeling the floor, walls, and ceiling of the aircraft and let a crew person know if you feel anything hot."

I wasn't in Kansas any more.

The FA was right. Every alarm in the airplane was screaming and I couldn't see the pilot's door from the 31st row.

FUCK. This is it. We're 7 miles from the nearest water hose and this fucking 757 is on fire. FUCK. This is gonna suck. I'm gonna die some time in the next 5 minutes and it's not gonna be quick or painless. I also can't call Ed to say good-bye. THIS SUCKS!

The pilot called a MAYDAY and shut off all the power to everything in the rear. He put us on the ground in Rochester, MN in about 10 minutes flat. By that time, the smoke had dissipated and it looked like we weren't gonna die.

5+ hours later, United flew in another 757 that flew us to Denver. Then we sat on the ground while they changed crews and did paperwork. We arrived in Seattle some 8+ hours late, exhausted and traumatized.

United's response? A $50 voucher for future flights on United. I'm not kidding.......

FUCK UNITED AIRLINES. I'll never fly their bankrupt POS airline again, and I'll do everything I can to make sure nobody does.