Wednesday April 11th, 2012 – Milwaukee, WI/Denver, CO/Tucson, AZ
I haven’t had to fly in a while, and I can’t say I missed it. The annoying and humiliating hassles of the circus that going through airport security has become get old in a hurry, and the time away has been quite refreshing. Today it was back to the grind, off to Tucson for four shows at Laffs.
The lowest fare I could find was on Southwest, my favorite airline. Those guys just know how to do business efficiently, that’s why I frequently try to give them mine. It used to be way out of my way to fly out of Midway Airport in Chicago, but now that they fly out of Milwaukee it’s an obvious choice. It’s less than an hour from where I live, and Mitchell Airport is easy to navigate.
My flight today left at 6:20pm and had a two hour layover in Denver. I got to the airport a little later than I had intended, but it was almost completely empty and I made it through ticketing and security without a hint of a glitch. It almost looked like they weren’t open, and I like it that way.
I made it to the gate in plenty of time, and there were no problems whatsoever in getting on the plane and finding a quality seat. The flight was a tad crowded but not full, and I was able to snag an aisle seat near the rear next to a quiet older man who was quietly engrossed in his newspaper.
We left right on time and landed smoothly in Denver a full twenty minutes before the time we were officially scheduled to arrive. We all filed off like clockwork, and the flight attendants were lined up with hands waving and smiles blazing to say good bye. Everything worked as it should.
Then, I walked directly to my gate in Denver only to discover that flight had been delayed due to some unexplained equipment glitch and they would notify us when it was time to leave. It was a completely different vibe than the first flight, and I felt it instantaneously. The party was over.
For whatever reason, as smoothly and without incident as the first flight had been, this one was bound and determined to be the polar opposite. There were people who couldn’t find their tickets that held up the line, and I could cut the tension with a knife. Different flight, different vibe.
This one was packed to the gills, and the only open seat I could find was next to some leathery looking tough biker type chick with a baby who would NOT shut up. I was afraid to look in their direction for fear I’d get slapped with one of her tattooed meat hooks and get myself kicked off.
To make it a lot worse, there was another screaming little demon imp about four rows up from where we were sitting, and they engaged in a blood curdling yodeling contest for the first hour of the flight which nobody but me seemed to find bothersome. After fifteen minutes, I wanted out.
Where was I going to go? All I could do was shut up and try to get some sleep, but there was a lady directly across the aisle who insisted on keeping her reading light on the entire length of the flight. They must have put a laser beam in that socket, and I think it burned through my eyelid as I tried to nod off for a nap to escape the circumstances. Then we hit some nasty turbulence which of course started the babies squealing all over again. It was a total treat to touch down in Tucson.
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