Smile-breaks
Weekend Flight to Yreka Brings Surprises
What a trip! It hadn’t been that long since I’d flown, but I’d never seen one of those elongated sleek silver pedestals that slurps up your boarding pass and spits out the stub at the other end so fast that the person behind you runs into you because you’re s’posed to be picking up your stub already.
What I couldn’t figure out was - why the attendant was still there. The machine did it all. Except for the smile. But then on my return flight I ran into an attendant who knew exactly what he was doing beside that machine. He reached out and plucked the pass from the gentleman two people ahead of me so fast you couldn’t say boo. Did the same to the kid in front of me and that’s when I stretched my arm out to about twice its normal length and slid my pass into the slot quicker than a cat. Couldn’t resist the challenge.
Another thing. Last time I flew, you waited for your row number to be called to know when to board. I waited for them to call my row, but they were calling for “Seating One Passengers.” I’d never heard that before. I figured it must be something new for airline club members.
Then they called “Seating Two.” What was this? I checked my boarding pass to confirm that my seat was still in row seventeen and that’s when I noticed the shaded box on my pass. Seating Three.
Whew! Good thing it wasn’t Seating One – I would’ve missed my calling. About then they called Seating Three and I got in line and boarded the plane with all my Seating Three pals.
From there, everything went along normally – if you don’t count the fellow beside me on his cell phone telling someone at the other end that he was going to kick the sh-- out of him as soon as he got home. I mean, I was elbow to elbow with this guy and what he lacked in the smile category, he definitely made up for in the muscle category.
Then he dialed another number and I almost asked him if he was going to kick the sh-- out of this one, too. I didn’t. After that, we didn’t converse and he didn’t kick anything out of me, so the trip was more or less successful, I guess.
Next came the trip to the Down Below. Got off the plane in San Francisco, followed the herd out a door in the wall, down a long narrow staircase and out to the tarmac, where we boarded a shuttle (bus – not space) to the commuter terminal.
The coffee at the commuter terminal was delicious and that’s probably why I spilled it. Then it was out the door again and across the tarmac and up the portable steps to the belly of the plane. This time my seatmate was a young woman. After she stood up to let me into my seat, she curled up into her own cocoon for the rest of the flight. No, she didn’t have a cell phone.
You know, there’s a whole lot more to this trip and I’ve plum run out of space, so I think I’ll come back next week and finish it off, if you don’t mind, ’cause I really want to tell you about the spilt pizza juice and the vanishing lap tray and those gorgeous green, green mountains and the white comforter lying over the city of San Diego and in the meanwhile, if you’ve had a trip experience you’d like to share with me, give me a call – I mean, send me an e-mail - and tell me about it.