So I’m sitting here in the World’s Smallest Airport* on a three hour delay with Earl waiting to fly back home. Or close to home. When we headed down here, we drove two hours from home, past our local metro international airport, to a little airport in another corner of the state all to save a few dollars in airfare (Hi, Dad!). When we landed, we off-loaded via what looks like a tricked out scissor lift onto the tarmac. Currently, the tricked out scissor lift is sitting outside the doors of the gates (Gates 1A and 1B, the only gates, lead straight out onto the tarmac via sliding glass doors), and there is not a plane in sight. Ours, after all, is late. Hence, the delay.
The last time I off-loaded onto a tarmac, I was in high school, and we were at my hometown airport – the one where you have to land, go over the hill, swerve around the pothole, and hope to slow down enough to make the U-turn lest you end up in the trees. We had flown down on a friend’s 6-seater jet to take two Russian bankers to Epcot, then circled my little hometown for an hour because of a thunderstorm over the airport. By the time we landed, I was green and too sick to notice whether or not we hit the pothole. It was hard to avoid.
The ride back to the airport two hours from home today looks like it might be a bumpy one. I hate planes, and I hate the thought of being 30,000 feet up and hitting bumps. This does not set well with me. Earl is excited, although her favorite part of the trip was three hours ago when we went through security. Kid LOVES going through security. She BEGS to get body scanned. Of course, they don’t. They don’t even make her take her shoes off. Party poopers.
Moments ago, the lady who makes the announcements with a microphone she doesn’t need in this tiny space with 583 ceiling tiles (yes, I counted, TPO), said the pilot had called in and said he was 20 minutes out.
This does not help my faith in this flight.
Pray. Please. Because, egad, I’d rather off-load on a tarmac than in the middle of a field somewhere.
*It’s totally not the World’s Smallest Airport, but it sure as hell feels like it today.
Leave a Reply