Up until last Tuesday I had never flown before. If you want to count the brief Cessna ride I had in the early eighties you can, but no one else does. After the dubious, "You've never flown?" question that everyone gave me I would say, "Unless you count the Cessna that one time," and everyone passed. Except of course my mom, but she enjoys nitpicking everything I say so she can point out inconsistencies and correct me. She's one of the people who likes to tell me that I really have seen more than three movies.
Anyway, I did manage to reach the age of thirty without flying. If I've told you once I've told you at least twice that I'm kind of a rube. As a rule I try to avoid describing myself in any way that is not concrete. I'll tell you that I have (dyed) blonde hair but I take steps to not say things like, "I'm sassy!" or whatever. This is because I think Roger Lodge is terrific so I frequently watch Blind Date.
Unfortunately, to understand the full force of Roger's funny jokes you have to watch the actual dates and I cringe whenever people have to describe themselves. "I'm sassy!" Um, okay. I like to sass it as much as anyone but I don't think I'm willing to take the leap into calling myself sassy. It's not up to me to tell you what to think of me.
However.
I think we can all agree that I'm kind of a rube. When LCG booked our flights and had some questions he even told the nice lady at the airline that we are rubes and don't travel much. I think he wanted the nice lady to know why he was asking so many (possibly) bonehead questions. He got a laugh out of the comment so it all worked out. Except for that part where I had to fly.
Flying, I always thought, is for other people. Specifically, the people who did not spend the nineties having airplane related nightmares. LCG is of the opinion that driving fourteen hours to Toronto is for crazy people who do not get carsick. I said, "Great! I'll pick you up at the airport in Toronto!" That was an unacceptable solution and since he is better at bullying than I am, we took a plane to Toronto. This wasn't just regular bullying either, this was first class, grade-A, highly inspired bullying. This was LCG spending the last eight or nine months thinking up A-Team style plans to get me onto a plane because I really, really didn't want to fly.
Early Tuesday morning I woke up at LCG's house because it was more efficient to stay there, plus I had already dropped my cat off at the vet for her vacation and once she is not home there is no point in being there. We had the boarding passes, I had my (specially purchased for the trip) messenger bag and he had his bookbag and we had our birth certificates and were ready to go to Canada! Woo!
Everything on the flight was fine other than the occasional question from me. "Is, uh, is it supposed to be like this?" I sort of imagined flight as being smooth, never mind the fact that balance is a fluid state. We tried to get me the pilot wings that little kids get on their first flight but they were out. D'oh! I did get a little certificate signed by the captain though. Woo-hoo!
When we arrived in Toronto airspace we were told there was a thunderstorm and the landing might be a bit bumpy. That was fine with me, I wouldn't know the difference. Mr. Carsick did not take that news as well. We circled the storm a couple of times which I found to be neato, and then the descent! I was sharing an armrest with LCG and I could feel his body temperature skyrocketing. I looked over and he looked just like Robert Hays in Airplane! when he had to land the plane. He was paler than usual and had turned into an unstoppable sweating machine.
He politely asked me to fetch up a barf bag just in case. I fetched two. We landed, he didn't barf, and then we were stranded on the tarmac due to lightning. Well, that will happen. I was delighted to be in Canada, and delighted with the fact that LCG returned to his normal sunny self once he was on the ground. We both called our moms (yes, mine is a nitpicker but she still worries) and I sent a text message to Joejung. Then we waited. And waited. And then we waited some more.
The storms were slow moving and the lightning kept striking so we were stuck. Fortunately LCG had brought his portable DVD player to keep me entertained (apparently if I was watching Futurama I would forget that I was flying) so we had that going for us, which was nice. After an hour or two (time started blurring) we smelled something burning. The captain told us that it smelled like lightning had hit a transformer.
Then someone in the next row with a local friend got a phone call. Turns out it wasn't a transformer, it was a plane that had skidded off the runway and sort of crashed to a halt. Um. Hmm. I would have been surprised, but remember, nightmares. In fact, within a few hours of LCG booking our trip the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport had been evacuated due to a bomb scare. I had a fit because it occurred the very day I had gotten my first flight scheduled and, you know, nightmares. The fact that a plane had burst into flames when I arrived made perfect sense to me and provided a tidy bookend on that end of the trip.
Tuesday turned out to be super because everyone got off the flaming plane alive and I believe injuries were minor. That alone is worth the time spent stuck on the plane, which turned out to be a total of five and a half hours. All told there were three slow ass thunderstorms and a plane incident but we finally got off the plane. We were warned that Customs would be a bitch because there were so many planes waiting to unload but we scurried along the corridors anyway.
LCG: Are you going to say that you are here to see Iron Maiden?
Me: Well, yeah. That is the purpose of my trip and that's what they want to know.
LCG: That's cool.
Me: Plus, look at our forms! Staying for 2.5 days is obviously not a vacation. Well, it was 2.5 days when we filled them out. I guess it's closer to two now.
LCG: I'm glad I decided that we should arrive a day early.
Me: I know that's right! And you were so wise in getting a hotel half a mile from the airport. I can't wait to take a nap! Then I'm going to go to bed early. Oh, I want to see the news too. My mom is probably having a stroke. I have two messages and I bet it's my mom and Joejung because they are news addicts.
We got to customs and there were about forty free agents. We went to agents right next to each other and when I stated the reason for my trip my agent said, "I saw them in 1987!" Awesome. We had nothing to declare but a few spare t-shirts and socks so customs was the easiest part of the day. All that was left was to get some Canadien currency and find the hotel shuttle, then finally start our trip to Toronto.