as Big as Texas

Have you ever felt turbulence while on the ground that was so bad it made you want to toss your bagels? Almost as violent as when you were in the air? I have. Here’s the story:

When I was traveling extensively for the red menace, I had occasion to visit Dallas, Texas. I was headed for San Antonio but for some reason we were diverted to Dallas. I don’t remember if I was connecting through Dallas or if we landed there temporarily. All this was because of the weather there so we were delayed for some time waiting. The airline, in a heart-felt gesture, decided I deserved a $20 voucher for my delay and troubles to be used in the airport. So, I went to the closest airport kiosk and asked for a bagel and a juice. The total was $7. The girl behind the counter decided that she would let me in on a little secret. “You see”, she said, “you can’t get change for this. You might as well order $20 worth of food.” So, I did. I just got $13 worth of bagels. It filled a brown paper bag.

We were finally allowed to board the plane and I was relegated to the rear of the plane. We taxied to the runway and then the captain came on and told us that there was another nasty cell coming through so we would have to wait. Again. Here’s where the turbulence came in. I could see out my window that the sky was darkening and actually quite ominous. No big deal. Let’s wait for the storm. Wow! As the heart of the storm beat upon us that plane rocked, tipped, and yawed like a Mormon newlywed bed. Holy smokes, many of my fellow passengers were less than amused. An hour and a half later, the storm left. The pilot came on and informed us of the proverbial good news/bad news scenario. The good news was that we had been cleared to be able to take off. The storm was over. The bad news was that there were 27 other planes that had priority over our departure. We were queued up. They expected about a 90 minute delay before takeoff.

It was at this point that a rather ample hungry-looking black woman near me began to complain about her hunger. Asking her to wait for the storm was OK, but could we please cut in front of some of these other planes and get out of here so she could eat!? So, Samaritan that I am, I piped up with an offer of a poppy seed bagel. She declined sheepishly. I think she realized that she was the only one complaining. I then said, to everyone in my section, that the airline had been gracious enough to give me money for these bagels and that I couldn’t possibly eat them all. That did it. Oh, yes. She accepted my offer of a bagel, as did many others seated around me. I nearly emptied the bag. Can you believe it, after everyone had a bagel, she had the gall to ask, “…do you have cream cheese?” I had to laugh. The nerve. Me with free bagels but no cream cheese.

After distributing the bagels, eating them, suffering with no beverage (no, I didn’t ration my juice) and apparently suffering worse with no cream cheese, we took off. It seemed to me that they saw a crack in the sky, a break between storms, and went for it. The liftoff was spectacular. I expected to hear, “…and the Airbus A320 has cleared the tower for the first-ever multi-racial, multi-bagel, experimental land-speed record-setting flight…” We were freely batted about the sky headed for San Antonio – or so I thought. Remember that storm that we waited for? Well, apparently, it had made it most of the way to San Antonio by the time we waited for the 27 planes in front of us. So, we would have to ‘fly around’ for a while waiting for the same storm to leave the San Antonio area. So we did.

Then came the pilot with some more good news/bad news. The good news is that the storm was leaving the San Antonio area but the bad news was that FAA rules stated that our fuel levels had reached a point where we had to refuel wherever we were. This, happily, was in Abilene, Texas. Abilene, it seems, had never had a plane this big actually land in this airport so they had no facilities to allow us to disembark. A truck, with a long hose, came driving up to the plane and we waited while Otis squeezed the handle and the jet fuel trickled into our plane. I half expected Gomer and Goober to run out, wash the windshield, and run the pilot’s credit card out the window.

Who knew it would take me 7 hours to fly over Texas. Sure, all the Texans did, right.