The Net Monkey

I arrived back from England on Monday in the evening.

The trip back from Heathrow to Dulles was very uneventful.  I bought an Economy Plus ticket with United, and ended up without someone sitting next to me.  (This happened on the way to England, as well.)  While these seats are only a $69 for a cross-Atlantic flight, United fails to sell out the section.  This enabled people to move to more comfortable seats, allowing me to have my own space.  I loved it!

Here’s a picture of Cape Cod. It was the first bit of American land I saw coming back.

I wish I could say such positive things about the trip from Dulles to Indianapolis.

The very first problem was the lack of air conditioning in the plane during boarding.  We were told this was due to a faulty ground A/C unit, but that we’d be OK as soon as the engines were started.  This wasn’t a big deal and I could deal with it.

As we started to cool down and push away from the gate, we hit a bump, and were informed that the plane ran over one of those wheel-stop blocks.  Doh!  Someone apparently forgot to remove all of them before the plane was ready to depart.

We waited for 30 minutes for the ground crew to bring a ladder for the pilot to get out and meet the mechanics to inspect the airplane.  As it turns out, the plane didn’t run over anything; it was the tractor pushing us out of the gate area.  Thankfully, there was no damage.

Finally, after restarting the engines, taxiing to the runway, and sitting in line for a while, we took off and headed towards IND.

During the flight, I had the displeasure of sitting in front of a twenty-something douche bag.  Though he wasn’t much taller than me, he apparently needed to jab his legs into the back of my chair throughout the entire flight.  To make matters worse, he couldn’t sit still to save his life.

I desperately wanted to turn around and punch the shit out of him, but I digress.  I’m not one for violence and I certainly didn’t want the pilot to land the plane to have us escorted off by the police.  It wasn’t worth it; however, I found quite a bit of solace and satisfaction just thinking about it.

To make things more annoying, the head flight attendant wouldn’t shut up.  I think he really enjoyed listening to himself speak.  Instead of being professional and announcing like every other flight attendant, he would go on and on, adding bits of commentary throughout everything.  He seized every opportunity to talk.

The worst bit was him talking about 9/11.  He felt the need to also recognize the serviceman sitting in first class.  I love my country and am proud to be American.  I’ve had family members in just about every major military conflict in the last century, but, for the love of Madonna, this was silly.  As they say, there’s a time and a place for everything, but this wasn’t one of them.  Is it so much to ask for some peace and quiet in what is already an uncomfortable situation?

Eventually, the plane landed, although a good 30 minutes late.  Poor Mom kept calling me to find out where I was, but my phone was turned off during the flight.  She finally drove around one last time, and met me outside of baggage claim.  At that point, all was right in the world.