Flying the friendly skies

Flying. It's my number one answer on the quiz "what do you hate most in life"?

Spending nearly 20 years in air traffic, ironically, I absolutely LOATHE flying. What used to be glamorous and fun has now become the number one, biggest pain in the ass I could possibly come up with. It's torturous to me and I start to get that "flying anxiety" the night before a trip.

Yesterday was no different except for one thing. The day was sprinkled with nothing but frustrating, unbelievable events that have me shaking my head in bewilderment.

The airport in Charlotte is perhaps a tad larger than Oakland. Translation: It's not that big. As I walk in, the entire place is packed. The lines are endless, the tension is high, and you'd have better odds winning at Keno than you would finding someone smiling. The way to gauge a crap airport is when the Starbucks line is longer than the security line.

If I could set up a Valium stand I'd be a billionaire. I'd probably be on America's Most Wanted list as well, but hey, I'm helping people. At least that defense worked for Dr. Kevorkian.

Anyway, after paying $15 for the 'privilege' of checking a bag I walked to the winding security line. Enter pet peeve #2. I'm in line and start removing my shoes, jewelry, and basically getting naked, while the other people are chatting it up, looking for their gate info, making plans for their arrival and other stuff they could really do once inside the terminal. We get to the front of the line and guess who's ready? Me. Guess who's not? The 50 friggin' people in front of me who act like they didn't know they were getting screened after being yelled at for the last 15 minutes by a pissed off TSA agent telling them what they need to do before entering the security area.

Idiots.

I finally get to the belt, put my stuff on and walk through, clean as a whistle. On the other side I gather my things but I'm missing my bag. SHIT. Bag check. Immediately I begin taking mental inventory of what I could possibly have in my man bag (as Joey Tribbiani calls it). I have magazines, keys, a laptop charger and not much else.

Well, the TSA guy walks over and says I have a pair of scissors. I stared at him like he was stupid. That was after wiping the mortified look off of MY face for possibly having a pair of scissors. Why in the world would I have scissors and what are they doing in my bag?

After 5 minutes of digging through my purse he pulls out a full size pair of scissors. Real nice one's too. I'm shocked. Of course I apologize but in his head he's heard it all. I shut up.

He puts the scissors in a little bin then says, "I'll need to rescan your bag". Off he goes. The bag goes through the scanner, he argues with the dude at the TV screen and then returns with my bag.

"He says you have another pair of scissors". Now it's getting comical. There's no way I would pack even one pair let alone two. Five minutes later he pulls a second, full sized pair of really nice scissors out with his surgical gloves like he's extracting a tumor and trying not to touch it. Now, aside from feeling like a pack rat, I'm embarrassed beyond belief. Visions of handcuffs enter my head along with a cavity search which, if he found a third pair of scissors, I deserved to die.

He puts the second pair of scissors in the little bin, slides me my bag and says, "Have a good day, sir".

"Don't you want to keep the scissors", I say as I'm zipping up my bag.

"No", he says, "They're legal".

Legal? LEGAL? If they're legal then why did you just spend the last 15 minutes messing with my shit looking for two pairs of scissors you were going to let me take inside in the first place? You've got to be kidding me.

Now I want to stab the guy with my two pair of scissors. Or at least cut off his mustache. I couldn't figure out who was the bigger moron. TSA for extracting 2 pairs of scissors all to send me on my way or me for even HAVING two pairs of scissors. What in the world were they doing in my bag and where and why would I need two?

Starbucks line. Stat.

After I grab my fix from the counter I start heading toward my gate. Never the first one. Always the farthest away. I get there right as they're boarding. Cool. Now I can just walk right on and not have to wait for an hour.

I'm in aisle 11 which is the one behind the exit row. I take my seat, put my molested bag under the seat in front of me and all of a sudden a small scuffle begins in front of me. Apparently a few children were sitting in the exit row, which isn't legal, so the flight attendant asked me if I could move, take their seat and exchange it with mine.

"Sure", I said.

She needed to fill one more of the seats and this cute southern bell volunteers to sit next to me. My heart starts pounding as I start to get very, very nervous. I'm horrible around girls and cute ones at that.

While everyone settles in I decide to get out my iPod and start jamming before we take off. As I'm getting my tray table set up I accidentally smack my full Starbucks cup. Huge spurts of coffee fly in the air and land.

In her lap.

'Holy shit', I'm thinking to myself as I put my hand on her jeans to try and wipe it up, all the while apologizing for being a dork. It quickly dawns on me that I probably shouldn't have my hand on her leg so I snatch it back. She says, "It's ok, don't worry about it". I'm scrambling for a napkin or SOMETHING but all I have is my sleeve. Again, I apologize but in a real nice voice she tells me it will dry and really not to worry about it.

Now I'm slump down in my seat, put my buds in and turn it WAY up. Maybe that will help me forget the incident.

Nope. I kept looking at her pants to see if it's drying or staining. In hindsight I can only imagine what that looked like. A guy with a Starbucks cup and an iPod staring at the crotch of the girl sitting next to him.

Lovely.

The rest of the flight was going pretty good. I had the tunes, I had the magazines, the girl fell asleep and my vital signs returned to normal.

Didn't take long for that to collapse.

I drank quite a bit of coffee, as I always do, and now I need to use the restroom. I'm in an aisle seat so I don't need to climb over anyone. It's always uncomfortable in the window seat when the middle person doesn't move so your only choice is to straddle them. And it's never a super model. It's a big, sweaty guy who's probably upset that he got stuck with a middle seat and now he's got some skinny dork about to give him a lap dance on the way to the restroom.

I walk to the back of the plane and both restrooms display the 'vacant' sign. Cool. Before I get there the plane begins to hit a little turbulence. Good thing I'm almost there because once the fasten seat belt sign comes on, the flight attendants force everyone back to their seats. I hear the 'ding' right as I duck in the room and lock the door.

Safe.

As I'm doing my business, the plane starts shaking bad. Real bad. Since it's pretty difficult to stop "mid-stream", mortifying thing number 3 occurs.

I pee on myself.

Great. I'm caught with scissors, I spill coffee on Miss North Carolina and now I have to return to my seat, sit in my own pee, and hope to God she doesn't start staring at MY pants.

Now, it's easy for one to do a "smell check" on their armpits. Usually good but sometimes bad.

Not so easy to do a "smell check" on your pants without looking like you're about to do something nasty. I prayed to God that it was a minor incident as I didn't even want to be caught looking at my own crotch.

She stayed asleep, the flight was coming to an end and by the time she woke up everything seemed cool. After landing, I apologized again and she just looked at me and smiled.

Needless to say I was really, really glad for the trip to end. Overall it was a horrible experience and one I hope to never repeat. But I would say the most unusual part of the flight?

The plane was on time.