Living On a Plane

First and foremost, I thank God that I am home safe.

However, I can’t make this stuff up, you just can’t make this stuff up and it only happens to the best of us. LOL. Yes this has everything to do with my flight home. Tia you were right on-time with your comment! You had no idea that I was stuck in the Matrix at that time.

I received a call as I pull up to the airport stating that my flight was delayed an hour. I was not a happy camper. It was around 11:30am at the time and the flight was scheduled to leave at 1:55pm. There were about 3 flights headed to Dallas from Phoenix that day and I was on the first one out at 12:55pm. Well not anymore. This was the beginning of a very long day. I asked my cousin to stop at the store so I could pick up some snacks. I didn’t think that I would actually need them, but I did. One o’clock rolls around and I was becoming hungry. We were supposed to board the plane at 1:25pm however, there was no plane present. I decided to get something to eat and thank God I did because who knew that would be my last meal until about 12:30 this afternoon the next day. I grab this expensive chicken ranch sandwich because I only had a bowl of cereal and I didn’t know how long it would be before I would get to Dallas.

To my surprise I boarded the plane about twenty minutes after the allotted time and I was supposed to land in Dallas around 4:45pm. Perfect. My flight back to Jersey would have been at 7 and I would have been home sweet home. Well not quite. I am dead asleep on the plane and the good ol’ Captain comes on the loud speaker and announces that there seems to be an issue at the Dallas airport. They have massive amounts of storms, they are so bad the airport is not taking arrivals and we are headed to Oklahoma City! Wow!!! Here we go again. I was a little nervous because there was a toddler one row in front of me and I said she has been very good so far and she may not like the fact that we will be idle for another hour. However, she was the most well behaved little baby ever, HANDS DOWN!

 Now that we are in OKC we are refueling and they are debating if we will get to a gate because we may get word any moment that it is safe to fly out. An hour goes by and what do you know…We are scheduled to get to a gate in twenty minutes. All lies. We literally stayed on the airplane for an hour and a half and now it is 7 pm. Oh wow guess what my flight leaves at 7 remember! So now I am praying to God that all flights are cancelled and I will be able to get home sometime today. Then, I decided to turn my phone on and check American Air’s website and it says my flight is scheduled to leave at 8 and it was 745. I am still in Oklahoma. Why is this happening right now? I am so hungry and I just want to lie in my bed. Captain comes on the loud speaker again and tells us that our flight has been cancelled and we are not going to Dallas tonight. Mental note to self: This has got to be some type of joke. I will be staying in OKC for the night. By the time my mental note was finished the flight attendant says that we are no longer cancelled and we will make it to Dallas in a few HOURS.  The guy sitting next to me, an ex baseball player, asks the flight attendant if we will be able to get off the plane and grab some food, relax, etc. She says, in a half hour or so. Lies. He missed his flight completely, his flight was scheduled to leave at 5 from Dallas to Florida and it didn’t look good for him. By this time, everyone is upset and the mom of the toddler asked Siri on her iPHONE, “How long can the pilot keep his passengers on the plane if we are just sitting at the gate?” Hilarious I think I actually laughed out loud because Steve Jobs has made such a huge impact on the world. (I mean I walked to the gate and all you see is white cords and apple logo’s its crazy.) Anyway, somehow someway we never made it to the gate and we are finally taking this half hour flight to Dallas. It is now 9 pm.

This supposed half hour flight turns into a forty minute flight and I was waiting for the seat belt sign to go off and it never did so I turned around and saw a few people waiting to use the bathroom. That was my queue because that was what I was waiting for. Well as soon as I get up the flight attendant tells everyone to sit down and clear the aisles because of the “unexpected turbulence” that can occur. Well Miss Lady unfortunately I have to take the risk because we all know turbulence is always unexpected and you made everyone sit down with their seatbelts on while we were sitting at the gate for almost two hours and now I need to use the restroom so I decide to keep waiting along with everyone else who was waiting. Well what do you know, she makes another announcement and to my surprise no one moved. So, it is almost my turn and I get to the back of the plane and the flight attendant who was sitting down says, “I know you heard the announcement”. I said, “You’re right I did but I have also been on this plane for almost four hours with that seat belt sign on so I think it is okay to use the restroom now so I will take my chances.” She looked at me smiled and opened the bathroom door for me but there was someone in there using the bathroom and I couldn’t help but make a face because who uses the bathroom on a plane and doesn’t lock the door? LOL

Finally, we reach Dallas around 10 or so and I immediately run to the agent to find out what was the next step. Was I staying in Dallas for the night or am I able to catch the next flight out or what? There were three others in front of me. One guy was placed in a hotel for the night and had the first flight out to Chicago the next morning. The guy in front of me and I were able to catch our original flights because they were delayed and were going to leave at 10:30! Thank God!

So I notice a McDonald’s and a T.G.I. Friday’s right next to my gate. I decided to talk with the agent first and ask her what time the flight was leaving. She said soon, they were getting a head count because many of the passengers decided to leave and take the hotel instead of the red eye. I asked if I had time to get food and she said yeah you can go get it but I can’t guarantee we will be here when you get back. No lie the place was directly across and I didn’t want to risk it. Talk about hungry.com!! I remembered I had the snacks from the store and ate the chips and boarded the plane. They decided to take a longer route so they refueled the plane once more so that we would actually make it to New Jersey this delayed us about a half hour. I could have gotten my food!!!!!!! I landed around 3:30am and was home in bed by 4:10am. Noticed I said in bed because now I couldn’t sleep!!! I went to sleep about an hour later.

I can say that I will never travel American ever again. I don’t care what the cost of the ticket is and I will never choose a connecting flight ever. That was the first time I did and that will be the last time. NEVER AGAIN. American didn’t have television, or any decent snacks.  You had to pay $4 for a bag of mixed nuts and that wasn’t an option. Oh I forgot that they actually gave us a “light meal” in OKC, good ol’ granola bar not bars, there was only one baby one. I was almost grateful for my first experience on the plane going to Phoenix because at least I watched Happy Feet 2 and Contagion! If I was able to swipe my card for TV I would do it in a heartbeat.

So there you have it folks, the most amazing flight experience of my life. I failed to mention the only reason why I made it to Dallas from OKC that night was because there were two flight attendants on the plane and one of them had to work a flight at 10pm to London. If she wasn’t on there I would be writing a different blog!!!

Happy first day of Spring!! BTW my trip was awesome!!!!!!! LOL Here is a pic of me on a night we went to the Jazz Club.

Nadie