March 6 — Snakes on a Plane

 March 6, 2022

So, we got about 3.5 hours of sleep and then we headed back to the airport to see if we could get seats together. No, we couldn’t. We couldn’t get food either. Everyone else had apparently pre-ordered their food. Since we had expected to be on a different flight, we did not pre-order for this flight, and it was probably too late anyway when we were rebooked. Noneof the various airline people we spoke to suggested that pre-ordering food would be a good thing to do before a 5-hour flight. Something to think about next time we find ourselves in this situation.

The 5-hour flight was uneventful except for one thing. There were several snakes on the plane. The snakes were the people who sat with their feet, knees, elbows, sticking out into the aisle. It makes it awfully hard to get back to the bathroom. In my case, I never made it. I tripped on somebody’s foot, or something, and reflexively grabbed for the seatbacks on either side of me. I went down hard with my hands clutching the seat backs in a death grip. Both of my shoulders got stretched in an unnatural way. I already had one torn rotator cuff. I figured I was going to end up with two. It really hurt. I literally got the wind knocked out of me. 

Before I could collect myself, I heard one of the flight attendants asking over the PA system if there was a doctor or nurse onboard. I wanted to hide, but I couldn’t even get up because I was still in a state of shock. I just wanted to lie there for a minute, catch my breath, and then slink back to my seat before anyone could see me. Not happening. Two nurses and two flight attendants descended upon me. They were all very kind and wonderful, and I I am very grateful for them, but it was too embarrassing. I got back to my seat and bandaids were put on my skinned knee and I was asked every 5 minutes whether I was ok. They didn’t do anything for my shoulders, and in retrospect, it would have been smart to get some ice on it Oh, well.

Where was Ken during all of this? He was sitting two rows ahead of me with his headphones on, enjoying some music. He was summoned at some point and changed seats with somebody so we were able to sit together for the rest of the flight.

In Florida, I was met at the gate by two paramedics who looked like former NFL players. Maybe they were going to carry me somewhere. I told them I didn’t want to go to the ER. I just wanted to leave the plane and the airport behind me as quickly as possible. So that’s what we did. We picked up our car and left. We still had a long drive ahead of us. For logistical reasons, which are uninteresting and unimportant to my narrative, we did not fly in to Miami, but elected to fly to Orlando, which is several hours by car from Miami. We still had a drive of about 5 hours. We reached Miami, dropped off the car at the airport, and took a Lyft to our hotel. 

Door-to-door, Anchorage to Miami: about 30 hours. Yeah, tell me about it.