Citizen of the World

Almost two weeks ago, we had a quite literally "shitty" flight down to Florida.  We had also been denied nut-containing products from their snack selections because someone in our rows 3-6 apparently very sensitive nut allergies.

This week, our flight was delayed by about 45 mins. Why? Because the plane had flown in from Bogata and needed to "clear customs"... aka "get fumigated and cleaned out of drugs", I'm sure.

When we did board the plane and got to our extra leg room seats in row 5 (I was on the window and Matthew in the middle), our aisle-seated neighbor was a full-grown young woman who happened to be about 2.5 feet tall. Yes, a midget. Yes, a midget, who paid extra for more leg room. Why would a midget need extra leg room?  She treated the space like it was her apartment. She hopped down to organize her stuff in the pouch in front of her, reached into her grocery bag, pulled out some snacks, and hopped back into her seat.  As we were deplaning and walking carefully over her, she was in the middle of folding a tiny pizza whilst laying on the seat with her ankles in the air.

Then Matt went to turn on his TV on his display. The first channel that displayed a show was presenting the Wizard of Oz!!  And which scene exactly??!  Yes. The Munchkin scene where Glenda is saying, "Come out, come out! Wherever you are!" Matthew nudged me to look at the screen, we both looked at each other startled and he changed the channel quickly.

Of course, Matthew and I during the flight couldn't discuss these things because that would have been rude and inappropriate. But we were confused. She seemed like a nice enough woman, but didn't have much to say. The only time she needed assistance was from the flight attendant with her tray table and from Matthew to hit the flight attendant button; standing on the seat, she still wouldn't have been able to press that button. :-(

Before we landed, one of the flight attendants ran up to the front and said, "Is there a doctor on board? We need a doctor in row 5 immediately!"  THAT WAS OUR ROW!  Of course, Matthew and I side-glanced toward our neighbor who was as happy as a clam laying on her ENORMOUS seat, as if it were a chaise lounge, playing with her iPad. Then about 10 people behind us said, "NINE! ROW NINE!"

As we were descending, something happened to one of the passengers and had to be evacuated once we landed in a sit-up stretcher. We overheard an EMT or police officer say, "Yeah, we have a possible code 16."  We found out later that code number meant that there was something to do with alcohol abuse, medication overdose, and/or mixing of the two combined with the cabin pressurizing and depressurizing.  So, even though the pilot did get us landed safely 15 minutes late instead of 45 minutes late, we all waited about 15 minutes while the sickly passenger and his wife got off the plane. 

While we waited for everything to settle, I called our driver just to confirm that we'd just landed and they hadn't updated our new flight from when I'd called the week before. So, they thought we were supposed to arrive at 2AM on Monday!  Needless to say, I said, "Well, we probably have about 20-30 minutes before we have our baggage and are ready to get in the car, which should be enough time to get to La Guardia from NJ."

The driver made it (somehow!) to the airport in 15 minutes from across the George Washington Bridge.  We were amazed as was his dispatcher, and we made it home in one piece by 10PM, just in time to place the last order from our local Chinese place.  It was a long, adventurous day to say the least.