The Flight from SFO to BWI - D. C. Adventures Part I

“Everybody knows, everybody knows where we are going, yeah, we are going down…”

We all are experienced travelers with plane rides; the three of us: LCG, KG and I. And we all agreed that the flight from SFO to BWI was the most eventful of all rides we’ve been on.

We were warned: the weather was not nice over the East coast; there was a tornado going on at the Midwest; there were going to be quite a few turbulence; the air was not friendly for planes; oh, but we will get you there. Yeah, we were warned only after we’ve sat down in our seats and the buckle was tightly fastened. None of us was going to be the world’s biggest wuss and stood up, raised our index finger and said “Uh, sorry, I don’t do bumpy rides. Thanks but no thanks.”

It all started with children (of which we were NOT warned) and, boy, was I glad Henry was not on board. He would’ve been the band leader of the screaming, crying tots; of the cackling teens and of the never-ending-talking-giggling-high-pitch-laughing girls. While all these noises were going on, accompanied by several rocking and shaking of the plane; we saw a rabbi who was seated two rows ahead of us jumped out his seat and ran toward the back where the stewardess was. Following him was the man sat next to him who looked a bit uncomfortable, a bit embarrassed. The stewardess ran past us with a blanket in hand and I heard this moaning of a woman “Help me, please help me.” I put my book down and got into my best eavesdropping position (Don’t tsk-tsk me or you might not know what’s going to happen next!) For some reason, the woman must’ve not agreed with the stewardess on something because she yelled again “Help me, somebody help me. I don’t know what’s going on!!” A kind faced woman came over and told the stewardess that she is a nurse and that she would be glad to help out. The stewardess was all too happy to hand over her responsibility, in this case, the blanket which she wasn’t able to put on the woman.

Thanks to my outstanding eavesdropping skill, apparently this was what happened: The woman is diabetic and her blood sugar was low; on top of it, she had a panic attack. (Honestly, with the way the plane was bumping up and down, I could have a nervous breakdown myself.) In the mist of her panic, she took her shirt off and was naked from the waist up; hence the rabbi’s and the male passenger’s reactions and the blanket. The poor woman finally calm down and the nurse sat by her most of the flight. And you might think that we should have a quiet flight from then on – no such luck!

I was feeling physically ill as if I was going to be car sick with the plane going up and down; up and down. Unlike the Disneyland rides, I couldn’t even scream at the top of my lungs. Or stripped like the diabetic lady. It seemed like the pilot came on the intercom every five minutes to tell us to fasten our seat belts; and each time he warned us of the bad weather ahead. KG slides the window up and took a peek outside and we could see the lightening bright and threatening. If all the rocking and bumping weren’t scary enough, seeing the lightening so close was enough to make me take a big gulp of vodka (which I did not do, children.) LCG, KG and I exchanged a look that says "I know what you are thinking, but please don't say it out loud... WE-ARE-GONNA-DIE!"

After a while, I just gave up being scared. If it's my time to go, there would be nothing I could do about it. My children have a good father and Mr. D is young enough to attract others for marriage again; and he is older and wiser NOT to father anymore children so he can focus on MY kids. If there were any regrets, issues need to be resolved – well, it’s too late – so I might as well enjoyed the ride and that’s exactly what I did - except I did change my music from OneRepublic to Elton John. It wasn’t helping that they kept the chorus of “Said, Everybody knows, yeah, everybody knows where we are going, yeah, we are going down…” going and going…