So today I’m flying out for my annual Writer’s Conference at Mt. Hermon Conference and Retreat Centre, nestled magically into a redwood forest in Northern California. Except last night, it snowed like some sorta bad place was freezing over. And before my American friends snicker, this is an Alaska Airlines attempt at a plane. It’s not my fault.
The snow. It… uh…. fell. Thick and hard.
This was my view of my Sarah Palin “plane” from the boarding gate… a mere fifteen minutes before we were supposed to commence boarding. Just a thought: maybe they could begin snow removal BEFORE it’s time to take off next time. Cause we sat there waiting on the tarmac for an hour because some electric circuit for the air circulation broke (this tends to happen when you try to crank the heat while covered in snow). The mechanics had to fill out a requisition to get a permit for approving new one, which took some time. I’m not kidding, that’s what they said, more or less. Then they had to install it. By the time it was repaired, we’d lost our place in line to get de-iced.
At which point, YAY! Right? No. We sat another hour, hoping for the big truck thingy to rumble by and spray the plane with the customary orange goo.
The orange goo melts the snow, apparently. Then they spray the orange goo with green goo. The green goo cleans off the orange goo, apparently. They didn’t spray the green goo with anything. It was still oozing down the windows when we took off. After they ran out of goo, left us there on the tarmac, refilled the goo tanks, and let us have it again. I’m not making this up, honest.
So eventually, we took off. Right into the air. Smooth sailing, right?
No. Apparently the US military had commandeered some airspace, so we had to take an extra five minutes mid flight to fly around a zone they had decided to use forsome blasted exercise. Because you know, the military can do whatever they want. My Palin plane did not come equipped with air-to-air missiles, or any other means of saying (forcefully), “Go away. We’re flying though here because these people paid good money to see the orange and green goo show two hours late and may want to get where they’re going sometime today.”
No. The military troll said, “You shall not pass.” So fine, then. We flew around, thumbing our noses at their supersonic fuselages the whole way.
I’m now in Seattle. Waiting a few more hours for my rebooked flight. Blogging. Asking God why I’m here, realizing my attitude stinks, wondering if there’s anything he wants me to do while I’m stuck here.
Actually, I haven’t been frustrated. This happened two years ago, on the way to this same conference (minus goo treatments and military kafuffles). I actually had to laugh. I hope you did, too.
Tom and Shauna, I thought of your epic honeymoon story just now. This yarn isn’t as good as yours, and I’m glad.
Peace out.