Friday, April 13, 2012

Friendly Skies

Darlings, I'm back. Fabulous, fabulous details abut my fabulous fabulous trip to follow, but for right now, let me cut to the bad news: traveling in other locales is great; traveling to them sucks. Especially on United. Should you have a choice between them and walking barefoot to your destination, let me weigh in strongly for the latter.

Our trip home was supposed to take about five hours yesterday. I got home this evening, 28 hours after I left our dear Diane von Austinburg's embrace. We managed to get all the way to just above San Francisco Bay about the same time as a huge storm. The airport closed all but one runway which meant we circled around the Bay Area and other, less charming counties for two hours before we finally got our chance to take a crack at landing. That's when our plane WAS STRUCK BY LIGHTNING.
I didn't know that even happened except in disaster movies. Abort landing! Divert to Sacramento! Strand mrpeenee there so he has to spend the night in a very odd hotel and then take the train, a subway, and a bus to get home the next day!

I entertained myself at odd moments throughout the day battling with the evil United Airlines about the possibility of being reunited with my baggage, which apparently was meandering about Northern California in a carefree sort of way I can only envy. I finally wound up driving out to the airport here to retrieve it.

No wonder people turn into shut-ins. Right now it seems like a very attractive proposition. But I'm back and there have been times over the last day and a half when that seemed pretty unlikely so, you know, yay and all that.

16 comments:

  1. My God. Thank goodness you're home safely after all that. We actually had what passed for a storm hereabouts last night (just an hour after our pal Miss Rheba's flight left), but nothing on the order of that.

    Yay and all that indeed!

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  2. This is why I never travel. I just stay in my room and cry.

    Glad you're okay, honey! Welcome home!

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  4. I'm sorry to hear about your horrendous ordeal Mr Peenee. I would have shat myself. I have irrational thoughts when flying, being struck by lightning is just one of them, birds flying South for the winter and been sucked in by the engines causing them to stop is another, the pilot annoucing over the tannoy that he's a bumble bee and performs a loop a loop is another, looking out the window at 38 thousand feet to see another plane heading in our direction. If I don't see smiley faces from the air hostess's at all times, I think a crisis is happening. A two hour flight to Spain can feel like a life time.

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  5. It seems like the last time I had a pleasant flight, no delays, no hiccups was sometime last century.
    I've flown untied without too many problems :::knock wood:::: but I have vowed to never set foot on a Continental flight or at DFW--AKA George Bush--Airport again!

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    Replies
    1. Sweetie, we think part of the troubles we had (the trip to New Orleans was also a pain, just not as dramatic) is that United and Continental merged this month, so you and I, once again, seem to have a common enemy.

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  6. Good heavens! I'm glad you're safe.
    But clearly God did not want you returning to California. Shoulda just stayed here.

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  7. Remember when air travel was glamorous? Yeah, those days are gone forever.

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  8. As I communicated with Fred earlier today, the irony of all this right after you mentioning at lunch the day you left that landing in thunderstorms is the only thing (besides bad, bad airlines) that bothers you about flying! I too am glad you're home finally . . . as I'm sure are you and Saki. Now, can you come back? I've got a white bouganvilla that needs repotting.

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  9. "Forget my jewels, I want my book in that bomb-proof box." Who said a facsimile of that, and in which pit-cha?

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    Replies
    1. Gloria Swanson : Airport 1975 : with Karen Black at the controls

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    2. Totally. I hope you have removed the steak from your eye. Nasty stuff. x

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  10. kabuki gave United the heave-ho in the 80s. imbeciles and charlatans - you should really look into charter flights. goodness knows you deserve the royal treatment, and then kabuki would worry less.

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  11. Thank goodness you eventually landed safely... Next time take the Broom!

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  12. Mr. P: So glad to hear you're home safe and sound. Hope you've had the chance to de-stress by cuddling Saki and sipping an Electric Lemonade, Harvey Wallbanger, or some such.

    A friend who flies more than many airline pilots tells me the quality of service has declined on pretty much all the domestic carriers. However, he says he hasn't seen anything to quite compare with my old nemesis, the unlamented TWA. Back when, I used to refer to them as "Trans World Assholes" and with good cause.

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