An Air Travel Nightmare

By Madeleine Kando

Flying is like signing away your rights as a human being. Not only is your life put on hold, but you never know which side of providence your fate will fall.

On my most recent flight to Spain, I thought lady luck had smiled on us, but after we were all seated in the full, upright, and locked position, our carry-ons stowed away, we were told that there was a slight problem with one of the landing lights, which would only take 20 minutes to fix. I could see Lady Luck start packing her bags and by the time we were told that unfortunately, they needed to wait for a replacement part to be flown in, she had stepped out of the plane altogether.

We were 'deplaned' and asked to wait at the gate, where we were offered complimentary refreshments, a euphemism for the familiar constipation-causing mini pretzels and soft drinks. What would that incoming plane do without the part we would be stealing from it, I wondered? Probably wait for another plane to come in, have those passengers wait 2 hours, and so on, ad infinitum.

As I was observing my co-passengers, some struggling with fretting, hungry babies, others snoring away or talking on their cell phones, I couldn't help but admire the collective patience and goodwill that filled this cold and sterile space. No cursing or yelling, no angry kicking, just a group of docile, well-behaved human beings.

We were finally allowed to board again and I was hoping that my connecting flight from Dublin to Malaga would also have some part missing so that it would not leave without me.

After a few hours, I take out my phone to write notes. I do that, so I won’t forget the details of an event, which I later want to incorporate into one of my silly stories. I keep my phone on the window side, away from my neighbor, and start typing. ‘Here I am packed like a sardine, afraid to ask the heavy-set Irish woman next to me to stand up, so I can go to the bathroom’.

My neighbor leans over to me and says: ‘I am not Irish, I am English. And I am not fat I am pregnant!’ She must have read my note. She gets up and leaves. Thinking that she has gone to the bathroom, I mentally prepare myself to profusely apologize for having written a private note to myself on my private phone. But she never comes back. Instead, a (dare I say it?) heavy-set flight attendant appears and asks me point blank if I am on medication. I try to explain that I wrote a note to myself on my phone, assuming that my thoughts, even written down, are nobody’s business. He asked if he could read the note, so I let him. He says: ‘Can you delete it, please’, which I do.

I feel like a criminal. Did I break any Irish laws by writing down my thoughts on my private phone? Am I truly an awful person? It feels like the whole airplane is looking at me, this old woman, probably on medication, gaga, without a neighbor. Am I going to get arrested when I get off the plane in Dublin? Am I going to be added to an Aer Lingus database, flagged as a ‘person of interest?’ I had no idea she was pregnant.

The silver lining is that I can get up to pee any time I want. But getting out of my sardine seat, everyone watching this horrible old woman who made her neighbor cry with her thoughts, made me hold it till the plane landed.

Beware, future Aer Lingus flyer. Know that bad thoughts have bad consequences. 1984 is here and Big Brother is watching you! leave comment here