The Saga Continues

8:42 PM EST, Somewhere over Columbus, Ohio

Unfortunately, I had no time to blog from JFK. Mainly because of what happened coming out of Syracuse.

So Kristyne & I got on the Delta Connection flight no problems. Tiny little plane, actually, more of a bus with wings than an actual plane. I was at the window, then Kristyne was on the aisle (we got the 2-seat side), across the aisle from us was a little older lady, Peggy, going to meet her brother in Rome. Really sweet lady, reading some sort of Irish-looking romance novel.

As we were looking over the safety protocols, Kristyne and I had the following conversation (this is legit).

“Who would bring a desktop computer on a plane?” asks Kristyne, pointing to a picture on the safety brochure of a television with a remote.
“Who would bring a remote with a desktop computer? That’s a TV,” I answer back.
Kristyne takes this in for a minute.
“Who would bring a TV on a plane?”

A few minutes later after we ponder who would bring a TV on a plane and why, she asks the tough questions about bringing remotes on planes.

“Can you bring a remote on a plane?” she asks. “Like, what if I was in India, and my mom calls and says ‘Our remote broke, can you grab a new one?’ and I buy one there and get on the plane?”
I look at her with a “you can’t be serious” look and respond.
“You could buy one back home,” I say.
“Yeah, but it’s cheaper in India,” she says.

Somewhere in the midst of all of this confusion, the pilot comes over the intercom and announces that since there’s too much traffic flying into JFK International Airport (our layover), we would be delayed 45 minutes to an hour sitting on the plane on the runway until we were given permission. So rather than taking off at 4:40 PM EST as planned, we would be leaving at 5:40 at earliest.

Kristyne proceeds to shit a chicken, thinking it’s completely her fault due to her horrible flying record (which, really, it totally could be. She has horrible luck with flying lately). As she calls her dad to tell him the news, I try to get in touch with my aunt and uncle in California. I call my Dad and tell him to relay it, because Aunt Dori won’t answer her phone. I try one more time and get Uncle Richard, who says just to call whenever the hell we get to JFK.

We take a few sad pictures with Anne-Koala reading the safety materials, waiving by the rainy window on the runway, and looking upset that she’s held up an hour with Kristyne frowning as well. We also have angry pictures with our boarding passes to San Fran, because we were under the assumption we wouldn’t make the connection flight.

We finally take off at 5:50 PM EST and proceed to hit some of the scariest turbulence I’ve ever experienced. My state of mind isn’t great, considering those recent three flights crashing (even though Sully got everyone out okay). Our main concern at this point was making our layover flight at JFK to San Francisco: that flight left Gate 10 at 7:20 PM EST sharp, and we assumed we would be missing it.

Turns out we didn’t. With a few shortcuts from the pilot, we got from Syracuse to NYC in about 40 minutes. Kind of sad, really, we waited on the runway on the plane longer than we were in the air on the plane.

So we disembark and quickly try to find the terminal, which let me tell you, JFK is freaking huge. I mean, the part I saw wasn’t as big as De Gaulle in Paris or Barajas in Madrdid, but the two terminals I saw were gigantic, and that was only for Delta. We found it finally, but as we were walking, I heard “Fetsic and Palombo, please report to Gate 10, the flight to San Francisco is departing.”

My “Oh shit” moment happens and I flashback to the Wisconsin flight my family took when I was about 10, when we forgot to change our watches to CST and we had to run to the gate. I’ll never forget it, Dad had Corinne in one hand and the Burger King bag in the other…

…anyway.

I yell at Kristyne to book it to the gate, we get there just in time, and we get on the plane 10 minutes before takeoff. Turns out the plane is really really empty (I currently have the whole row to myself, the lady sitting by the window got up to find an empty row to sleep). I buy myself a kick-ass southwestern chicken Caesar salad from the plane and get my drink, and settle in for a 6 hour and 6 minute flight, which actually left 5 minutes early from the gate and features free TV shows.

So I can watch E! and Saturday Night Live when my laptop dies from 30 Rock.

So the traveling started off bad, but really, not horrible now. Granted this flight goes as planned. Stay tuned, next entry should be some point tomorrow.
9:16 PM EST, Flying into Illinois (according to this nifty in-flight map)

I want to discuss the “Mile High Club.”

After having to book it through JFK and not having time to stop at the restroom or get food, I decided to move about the cabin and use the bathroom. Other than the cold air blowing at me from nowhere and the odd faucet, I noticed how truly small that the bathroom on a plane is.

It’s essentially smaller than a port-a-potty, with the luxury of not being tipped over (although you can’t really crash a port-a-potty, so six in one, half dozen in the other). There’s enough knee space to walk in, but really, there is one.

Now I know that a lot of people have the fantasy of having sex on a plane in the bathroom. Logistics wise, those people having sex in the airplane bathroom have to be tiny, and willing to have either the hand-hold bar or the faucet digging into their back during the act.

Just a thought. Will update ASAP.