a tale of two flights

i'm not nearly as disgruntled as i was last night. however, if northwest were to ever crawl to washington for bailout money, i'd meet them on capitol hill with jeff gillooly and tonya harding them. "no delays" quickly turned into an epic fail on all fronts. i'll take the cramped legroom on frontier or spirit over the lackadaisical ground portion of those two connecting flights to get me down south.

first flight, d.c. to memphis tennessee. flight was supposed to leave reagan on time. took them 25-30 minutes of sitting in the gate with the doors buttoned up to fix a light on one of the wings. no big deal, just going to shorten my layover in memphis. i didn't want any memphis bbq anyhow. i'll just eat my clif bar on the plane. well, we land at 7:30 with few minutes to spare for many on the plane to catch their connection elsewhere. the poor girl across the aisle from me had 10 minutes to switch planes. that turned to five as we sat 10 feet from the jetway with no one on the ground crew to guide us in. as i looked around the cabin, i realized that nearly everyone was really anxious about getting to the gate on time. everyone that had to catch another flight had a small window to begin with, but this seemed unusual on a full flight. i thought i had a short turnaround with my flight leaving at 7:50 theoretically, but mine was actually the most leisurely stroll. turns out, i didn't have to change planes. just flight numbers.

second flight, buttoned up in the cabin, sat on the runway for close to an hour. why, i'm not sure. sat next to a 17 year-old kid from small town wisconsin. talked to him for most of the flight. man, i was tired, but conversation on a plane was better than passing out uncomfortably or trying to read or watch a sopranos episode on my laptop, not knowing if i was going to see lots of blood or boobs. flight landed around midnight, i did fall asleep for the last half hour or so i guess. quick pick of the baggage and in the back of the vw on the way to 8207.