The Battle of Elbow

14 Monday Nov 2011

Posted by in Monday Madness, Seatmate Shenanigans

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Trip type: Business

Airline: Delta

Route: MSP-ATL

Much like the Battle of Elba in 1652 (AP European History geek), the Battle of Elbow is one that’s of critical importance whilst flying. Placing one’s elbow early is imperative. Especially as a smaller person, I find that if I don’t already have my elbow space claimed when my neighbor arrives, the chances of me getting it are slim to none.

A tad melodramatic perhaps (especially as I owe the AP the photo credit) but surely my fellow road warriors can commiserate.

I decidedly lost the battle on this week’s journey south. Although I arrived before my armrest sharing seatmate and had plotted my elbow-flag if you will, this was one of those delightful situations where my neighbor was too large for me to do anything but retract my arm altogether for fear of losing more than a place to rest my weary elbow.

For whatever reason, every time I am upgraded, even just to the exit row (as was the case this morning), I will always, always, get a seatmate who needs a little of my seat as well as his own.* Is this evidence that the travel gods are exacting their revenge for me being in an exit row since my feet barely extend under the seat in front of me in a normal row? Maybe. Probably. Definitely.

In case you are enjoying some schadenfreude, let me put the icing on your cake with two words about my friend in 11B: Sleep. Apnea.

It was a long flight.

*This post is in no way meant to be disparaging to larger people. I understand that seats are smaller than the average American. Discomfort just makes me grouchy.

Texas Calling

09 Wednesday Nov 2011

Posted by in It's not always so bad

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Trip type: Personal

Airline: Delta

Route: MSP-AUS // AUS-MSP

As alluded to in Monday’s post, last weekend also brought the opportunity to travel for fun and the travel itself was actually rather enjoyable (so much so that E is now convinced I just make up the rest of this blog).

Glorious leg room

The flight to Austin came complete with an exit row (the glares from tall people are almost as delicious as the ridiculous leg room–see picture where I’m actually sitting on the very edge of the seat to get my feet this far forward).

Because we were on a Barbie jet, we had to gate-check our roller bags. I really enjoyed the Delta guy unloading the bags loudly muttering to himself when everyone was crowded in the jetway waiting to retrieve bags after the flight (“Can’t anyone read the signs? What is the matter with people?!”)–as if we were choosing to loiter and annoy him.

The flight home from Austin went smoothly as well, but the gate agent was one of the weirder representatives I’ve seen. He’s clearly been relegated to a corner of the Austin airport all on his lonesome for far too long (and perhaps with just cause).

At first I thought perhaps he was just a little off (like when he would make “announcements” every few minutes which pretty much just consisted of him babbling incoherently until he lost his train of thought and drifted off mid-sentence) but when it came time to start boarding, I decided he was just looking for some validation of importance. Why, you ask? Because he called roll for first class. Yes, one by one. He called their names and scanned their boarding passes individually. Happily, just when I was starting to worry that the entire boarding process would go in a similar vein, he jumped to zones.

The rest of the flight was smooth and we got home just in time for me to repack for this week’s adventure to Atlanta. If only I could have found a way to work my newly purchased cowboy boots into work attire…

Yee-haw!

(Desired) Death of a Salesman

07 Monday Nov 2011

Posted by in Seatmate Shenanigans

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Trip type: Business

Airline: Delta

Route: MSP-ATL

If you know better than to engage a commercial linoleum salesman in conversation, you might be smarter than [someone who’s the same height as] a fifth grader.

This morning’s trip started off smoothly, despite it putting me back at the airport only 15 hours after I’d stepped out of it (more on that to come). Then I met Kurt (maybe with a C but I feel like it’s a K). And it went a little something like this:

Kurt: Good morning.

Me: Good morning.

K: Business or pleasure?

Me: At 6am it better be business. You?

K: Business. On my way to Birmingham to sell a public storage company some linoleum.

(Intuition tells me to say something non-committal. Curiosity wins.)

Me: Linoleum?

K: Yeah, I sell commercial linoleum.

(Intuition and curiosity spar again. Guess who wins.)

Me: Interesting.

K: It really is! (Oh boy.)

Kurt then regales me with some finer points of linoleum installation which I will gloss over for sake of your sanity and mine (apparently it’s very different to install in different climates–who knew?!). Then he segues into telling me how he helped a friend install some linoleum this weekend.

Kurt: Menard’s is really in trouble though! They didn’t wrap the pallet correctly so the roll  bursted through my pickup’s window on the drive home!

Me: (couldn’t resist) Bursted?

K: Yeah, bursted right through!

(In Kurt’s defense, dictionary.com does list bursted as a past-tense option of burst but I think we can all agree that it sounds stupid.)

Luckily/unluckily, Kurt’s coworker showed up to occupy the seat next to him at this point in the conversation. Luckily, it took Kurt’s attention off of me. Unluckily, it meant I got to hear in even more detail how the linoleum roll bursted through his truck’s back window and how he’s going to litigate Menard’s if he has to.

Needless to say, I was more than a little stabby by the time we hit 10,000 feet and I could finally plug in some music.

[On an unrelated note, there were two amazing mullets on my flight as well. One was a kid which I guess I should forgive and one was a woman who must have been 40-ish. She literally looked like she’d been let out of a time capsule earlier today with her complete 80s look of tapered jeans, high tops and a mock turtleneck. Unless acid wash jeans are making a come back in which case I’m screwed.]

Of Tarmacs and tears

24 Monday Oct 2011

Posted by in Monday Madness, With love from the Tarmac

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Trip type: Business

Airline: Delta

Route: MSP-ATL

Just when I’d started to think I wouldn’t get any good blog material any time soon due to my last few trips going off with few complications, the gods of travel intervened…If you’ve ever read Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, you have a pretty good idea of where this is going.

Fun things that happened on this morning’s 6:30am flight:

1. TSA comedian joked that they wouldn’t be able to get a reading from the full body scanner because I was so short. Hysterical.

2. Six TSA reps visited my gate to check everyone’s photo IDs prior to boarding. Three people got a surprise pat-down. Guess who one of them was.

3. Finally aboard, I’m attempting to put my bag up (read: use my lacking upper body strength to more or less throw my bag toward the overhead bin. Ok, maybe the TSA guy was funny after all.) when I am hit in the head by someone trying to put her bag up across the aisle. (This is where the ‘tears’ part of this entry’s title comes from, btw; she really smacked me good. Don’t worry though, she totally got what was coming to her when I didn’t do the Minnesotan thing and say “That’s ok.” when she apologized. I’m sure she noticed the slight and was duly shamed.)

4. Finally. Let’s get this show on the road.

Alas.

After sitting on the Tarmac idling for about a half hour, the captain finally comes on to tell us that a valve that controls the air is stuck and maintenance has to fix it. We sit for about 10 minutes and then finally head back to the gate. At first we’re told it will be 20 minutes…20 minutes later we’re told it will only be 10 more minutes…this is followed by maintenance deciding it needs 15 more minutes to actually replace the valve (what had they been doing back there anyway??). Finally, we’re told it will only be five more minutes to get the final paperwork produced. Oy gevalt.

As you would imagine, about half the plane is now approaching Defcon Three. There’s a couple behind me going on their honeymoon (connecting to Cancun), the guy next to me is trying to go to Gainesville, and the guy two rows back was apparently going to The Most Important Conference of ALL TIME because it was IMPERATIVE he make his connection, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME? Like poor Neil the flight attendant has any control over the damn valve. (Although I did shoot Neil an “Are you f-ing kidding me?” face when he told some woman visiting her granddaughter that “Delta will take care of you.” For the record: Zero gate agents met our flight.)

5. Finally-finally. We’re really going to go this time. The captain promises.

But we do really take-off. Yay! And for all that, we land only about 40 minutes late. They really do pad flying times.

6. Oh yes, there’s more. I get to the car rental center and head to grab a car at National (with status, you can just walk to any aisle and take a car). Inexplicably, National has all American cars…and Jettas. I always take a Jetta. So I find one, walk over, start putting my bag in and an elderly couple approaches me.

Woman: “Why did you choose this car?”

Me: “Excuse me?”

Woman: “We’re trying to decide what car to get but I can’t pick.”

OMG. Is this really happening? The only contact I want to have at the rental car center is with the person at the exit gate. And even then I don’t like to make small talk.

Me: “You know you get to bring it back, right?”

Woman: “But we have to drive it for three days!”

I am dumbfounded but luckily she scoots away to admire a Kia. I did nearly run her over (accidentally! swear!) leaving the parking lot so I feel like we’re even.

And finally, I arrive in glamorous Alpharetta. If only Starbucks offered a shot of Bailey’s.

My own worst enemy

07 Friday Oct 2011

Posted by in Seatmate Shenanigans

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Trip type: Business

Airline: Delta

Route: MSP-ATL

On the cusp of Yom Kippur, I must atone…

I was talking to E about my misadventures the other day in hopes of uncovering other memories I’ve forgotten/repressed and he posed an interesting thought–did I think I had ever been “that person;” the one who does something absurd on an airplane that was surely talked about in my seatmate’s next call home.

I have certainly annoyed many a fellow seatmate (I tend to  laugh out loud when watching 30 Rock on my iPad) but I couldn’t think of a time that I did something I would find so weird that someone might blog about it (the nerve). Until I remembered an April 2011 trip…

I will say, in my defense, that the story has to do with my dog, Bella, who is the other great love of my life. (I mean, look at that punim; what’s not to love?) The cutest dog on the planetWe had just acquired her and were both in the midst of constant travel which necessitated some extra dog help.

Because I am completely neurotic about mostly everything, when we decided to get Bella  a dog-walker, a formal interview was  necessary. Clearly. The plan was for the dog-walker to come to our house to meet E and Bella and then I’d just dial in from Georgia because I had to fly the day the dog-walker could come. Completely normal, right?

Now, my plan had not been to appear as a crazy person. Like any good psychopath, I wanted to keep this little tidbit under wraps and timed the call so that I could do it from my rental car on the drive to the office. Alas, the air travel gods conspired against me and we got in late…so I did the call from the Tarmac.

I initially called home and had a very normal relationship-y call with E telling him I got in safely and coordinating pick-up times for when I’d return. Then the dog-walker showed up and I switched into business mode, asking about how the business works and how the booking process functions. And then I started talking about Bella’s needs. Oh yes, this dog has needs: “She likes to walk by the river but watch out for Segways because they scare her.” “If it’s really warm, give her an ice cube.” “Be sure she only gets a half of a treat at a time.” “Do you think her gums look ok?” Ok, ok, it’s ME who has needs…needs to be crazy.

I hung up 20 minutes later (still on the Tarmac, thankyouverymuch,ATL) and happened to turn to my seatmate who was obviously trying very hard to not laugh. I’m going to assume I might have cameo’ed in a story of his.

Well, glad that’s off my chest. Happy new year!

Observational Flying

23 Friday Sep 2011

Posted by in It's not always so bad

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Trip type: Business

Airline: Delta

Route: ATL-MSP

This week’s travel was exceptional in its unexceptional-ness. Which is a nice change every now and then…two flights that left on time with little to no excitement (“Just how I like my flights!” as my mother would say). Well, with three minor-ly amusing exceptions:

1. As I mentioned in my brief post earlier this week, the flight to Atlanta did come complete with a 10-person bachelorette party and I had to wonder what brainiac maid of honor had booked them on a 6am Monday flight to Mexico connecting through Atlanta. Although there was much excited chatter pre-boarding about whether the bars at the Atlanta airport would be open by the time we landed at 10, they were relatively quiet on the actual flight. Perhaps wisely deciding to stock up on sleep.

2. I got to the gate early (in my usual quest to control the uncontrollable by being present and accounted for) and got a nice seat in front of the desk  which gave me a front row seat to every self-important businessman (yes, they were all male) on the flight approaching to ask for an upgrade. You would think these guys would know better…a flight from a hub (ATL) to another hub (MSP) on which almost everyone has at least middling status, will almost never yield you an upgrade unless you’re Diamond and the few who are Diamond never bother asking. Then I see my own previous comment about self-importance…

3. The guy next to me got wasted on the way home. On a two hour flight where they only serve beverages for 90  minutes or so, it was impressive how quickly he put away four beers. Luckily, he was not chatty in his inebriated state but I was dying to know if he got fired, lost a deal or worse…the mysteries of flying. At least he didn’t drool on my shoulder.

Until the next adventure!

Just Another Icelander

18 Sunday Sep 2011

Posted by in Adventures Abroad

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Trip type: Personal

Airline: Delta

Route: AMS-MSP

They say that the worst thing about vacations are their ends and I’ve certainly found this to be true…especially if you find yourself in trouble at Schipol.

After a lovely two weeks in Prague, Bratislava and Budapest, we were en route home to Minneapolis via Amsterdam. We had started our journey that morning in Budapest and let me tell you–if you ever doubted Communism took hold of Eastern Europe, just visit the Hungarian airport sometime. It was unmitigated chaos. E and I are pretty well traveled and certainly know our way around a ticket counter but we could not for the life of us figure out this airport. There were people milling about aimlessly and poorly formed lines cropping up every which way. We were flying KLM but had some Hungarian partner aircraft for the first leg of the journey…if only we could find it. Luckily, I finally found someone to help us and he did the check in for us at a kiosk (this detail is important later).

Anyhoo–we arrive in Amsterdam mostly on time but nothing can ever be easy in Amsterdam, can it? We walk down the stairs onto the Tarmac and are transported to the airport in a bus. Upon arriving, it is clear we will be going through security again (is Hungary’s TSA not up to snuff?) except this time, our plane of 200 passengers will do it single file through ONE security lane.

Once through the saddest excuse for security ever in the Schipol basement, we were off to our gate. Amsterdam “opens” the gate about an hour ahead of time on American-bound flights so that everyone can be interrogated one last time. Then you go through security again before sitting in a holding pen until you’re allowed to get on the actual plane.

We get through the interrogation just fine but as we go to scan our passports, there’s a problem. Every time I try to scan mine, a red light starts flashing. Finally, the highly annoyed gate agent tells me to go talk to someone at the desk. When E tries his passport, the same thing happens. I try to control my panic.

We wait patiently (well, E does anyway) in line at the desk until someone deigns to look our way. When she scans my passport, she asks if I have my visa with me. I ask her why and she says because my passport scan shows I’m an Icelandic national and have an American work visa. E’s passport says he’s French. Naturally, I’m now convinced we are going straight to Schipol detention and try to wrack my brain of who we call first for legal advice.

The women at the desk keep hacking away at their computers without really telling us what’s going on for what feels like hours. Managers are called over, calls are made and all the while, everyone else on our plane is going through the system just fine. Every time I try to add some piece of knowledge or push my MN Driver’s License on them, I’m rebuffed with a condescending statement that it will be fine. Just what the girl with the Jewish surname wants to hear by people speaking terse Dutch.

Finally, we are free. It would seem that in our helpful Hungarian’s quest to help us, he ignored several key questions when he checked us in at Liszt Ferenc, thus changing our nationalities. Köszönöm, Andris.

Back to School

14 Wednesday Sep 2011

Posted by in It's not always so bad

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Trip type: Business

Airline: Delta

Route: ATL-MSP

Because you can never assume things will go smoothly with Atlanta traffic, I always end up at Jackson-Hartsfield early. Very early. Then, I go and visit the Delta desk to see if there’s any chance of getting on an earlier flight (there never is but it’s a fun little game I play with same, sad looking woman who’s inevitably working when I’m flying).

As I’m waiting, there’s a frazzled mother with her two sons in line behind me. They have very heavy Southern drawls and it’s clear from their demeanor and story that they don’t fly often (she was very upset she had to throw out her full-size hairspray at security…). Naturally, I strike up a conversation and end up chatting with the older of the two sons who is probably about 12.

Boy: “At least we got out of school early!”

Me: “Wow, it’s still August; I didn’t realize school had started for some people. When did you go back this year?”

Boy: “Three weeks ago. When did you start?”

Me: [caught-off-guard-laugh] “Oh, I’m a grownup!”

Not my smoothest of responses (please see previous post for proof I can be smooth) but I was so taken aback at being taken for this kid’s peer (I decided later the better response would have been “1989”). I may be the height of a seventh grader but I could swear I seem slightly more adult. Maybe next time.