YOU CAN'T GET
THERE FROM HERE
(The plane that loved Cincinnati)
by Sally
Babe Fingerett
Ahh,
Washington State. What a beautiful place to perform. The audiences are
intelligent, caring, and known for loving singer/songwriters. It's always
a pleasure to head out to the Northwest region.
Unless,
of course you're flying Delta Airlines through Cincinnati.
Three
quarters of this foursome shared what we termed a "for the books"
experience while trying to make it out to Kirkland, Washington and Idaho
Falls, Idaho for a run of concerts during the Easter Weekend. (2000)
Debi Smith, our DC Babe, had no trouble finding her way out there, though
she did have some distress making it through the Dallas airport for
her connection. "Mylanta" was all she said.
It was
Megon, Camille and I who would share a night of "icky-convenience"
there in Cinci.
The three
of us were to meet in Cinci and fly out west together on the same Delta
flight. I first realized there was a bit of strangeness to this travel
itinerary when Meg walked on board our outbound flight in Cincinnati
saying, "Who booked these flights, Magellan?" It suddenly
occurred to me that she'd flown from Chicago, East to Cinci, to only
fly West over Chicago to Washington state. I'd flown from Columbus Ohio
and Camille from Albany. This made geographical sense. Meg's flight
out of O'Hare had been delayed, and she had to run through Cinci's considerably
large airport. I could have sworn I heard the sound of the aircraft
side door hit her on the tuchas as she boarded. Ironically there was
no reason for her to rush. And so we sat on the plane. Waiting to taxi
out. But wait. Green skies, dark clouds, small Monopoly houses twitching
and turning while witches on brooms and small dogs began to circle in
the air.
"Ladies
and gentlemen, it appears there's a storm front moving in, and we'll
sit here in holding and let it pass." Fine, good, this works. Better
late than "the" late.
Thirty
minutes later, "Ladies and gentlemen, it appears this storm is
yada yada miles wide and is traveling at lala lala miles an hour, we're
going to let you off the plane, please do not roam from the gate as
we will be taking off shortly."
Let's
see, yada yada miles divided by lala lala miles an hour, no, wait that's
lala lala miles divided by yada yada...oh screw it...let's go get coffee.
But we can't-the man said "don't roam."
"Ladies
and gentlemen, we know we said don't roam, but it appears we were able
to do the math, unlike you people, and we can tell you right now, we'll
be on the ground for at least an hour, so quit obsessing and go get
your coffee."
Three
Babes head off for coffee, magazines, popcorn, diversion. The storm
was beautiful. Green clouds, hard pelting rain. The kind of spring showers
that serves to clean gardens and wash away winter blues leaving positive
ions in the air. When all was said and done the skies turned blue, bright
and fresh.
"We
will now begin boarding Delta flight #697 with service to Seattle, please
have your boarding passes out and ready."
We politely
waited our turns in line and headed back into the jet way, onto the
plane and sat back down.
We were
buckled and ready. Ah, here we go taxi-ing out to the runway. Not so
fast Divas.
"Ladies
and gentlemen, we're 21st in line for take off, so sit and enjoy the
view." Lovely the rear ends of 20 planes, that was our view. Nice.
As we
sat waiting, I noticed that my reading light wasn't working. I also
noticed that there weren't any reading lights aglow on our left side
of the plane. Along the right side, all lights were lit.
"Ladies
and gentlemen, some of you may have noticed that your reading lights
aren't working. We've also discovered that our galley ovens are not
working. We will have tech crew join us while we're waiting. We'll let
you know more as it develops."
All right
then. More of whatever it is. Ghosts, demons, airline officials wanting
to play god? I thought, "what if we demanded to get off this stinking
plane right now, and then in tomorrows news we're interviewed because
our physic ability warned us that the plane would crash, and we were
not among the casualties and how do you like that? Isn't it amazing
how we girls just knew? Spiritual Mavens, I bet we write a song about
it.
Not.
We'll sit here like the rest of the hopefuls wanting to take off and
fly to somewhere other than here.
"Ladies
and gentlemen, our tech crew has inspected our galley and lights, and
they feel that these systems are not integral to our flying this aircraft,
so in just a moment we'll have catering bring lunch kits on board for
our meal service and we'll get ready to go."
Ohhhh,
a hush of concern peppered with moans. Just what do they mean, "these
systems are not integral to flying this aircraft?" Here we are
in the classic position of not wanting to know how this watch was made,
and yet wanting an explanation of how the galley ovens and reading lights
have nothing to do with engines and other electrical systems? Oh well,
what the hell, these people have been making these decisions for years.
So we all sit back, and struggle to relax. A perfect oxymoron.
The sandwiches
are dispersed and I realize there are other important problems to fret
over. I look over to Megon-"FIVE HOURS NO COFFEE!" She looks
back at me with a little "charmed, I'm sure" pursing of the
lips. We both knew we were about to be boldly tested. Oh well, we've
got a gig to get to, and Debi most likely has arrived and is all alone
in the hotel.
Our aircraft
is in line to take off. This flight was scheduled to leave at 4:30pm.
It's now 9:15pm. For 45 minutes we sit waiting our turn. There are two
college boys behind me saying things like, "Who needs ovens and
lights, let's go, let's go, let's go?" Obviously they haven't any
children. I myself start to question what else could I do for a living
that doesn't involve travel. Waitress, clean houses, freelance write
airline magazine articles to help weary travelers overcome their fears?
Anything but this.
It's
now 10:15 and what's this? We're taking off? Into the night heading
west! We realize that we'll be landing in Seattle at 3:15am east coast
time, though it'll only be Midnight local time. We figure we'll get
to the hotel, sleep fast, and have ourselves a show later that day.
We're
in the air about 20 minutes. There's a Navy Jet pilot sitting in the
front of the plane who calls for the flight attendant.
"I'm
smelling smoke dear" he says calmly, patiently, with great reserve
so as not to frighten the 21 year old flight attendant who has an uncanny
resemblance to Pippi Longstocking. Needless to say she completely freaks
out and goes to the cockpit.
"Ladies
and gentlemen, this is your captain." I hate it when it sounds
like a movie script. "It appears there's some unexpected difficulties
and we'll be turning around and heading back to Cincinnati airport."
At this
moment I cannot repeat what the collective attitude was. No need to
get ugly in print.
What
amazed me most was how long we remained in the air. We didn't change
altitude nor direction. We just sort of circled. Finally as we came
in for a landing, we were all taken by the throngs of emergency vehicles.
Fire trucks, ambulances, and squad cars. Just for us? Where's my lipstick?
Later,
as we filed out of the jet way out to the gate area, one man said, "Did
you notice they dumped the fuel?" "Ooooohhhh, aaaahhhh, they
did?" They did.
It's
now 11:30pm. A plane full of aggravated, frightened, exhausted travelers
are running to other gates for information, maybe a connection out on
another plane. Anything, but please can we be done with this day?
We waited
in line after line. Meg, Camille and I, so undone by this, and yet so
grateful that we had each other. This is the beauty of the BABES. At
it's worst it's still tolerable, well at least for the first 10 hours
or so.
We discovered
that as it was mechanical difficulty Delta would be securing hotel rooms
for our night in Cinci, and we were put on a 7am flight for the next
day. We would not be getting our bags for the evening. HORROR OF HORRORS.
Divas without makeup! But we managed. They gave us the cutest little
overnight kits, with toy sized toothbrushes, deodorant, etc. We dug
into these kits...what no Clinique, Mac? A comb? What the hell do you
do with a comb? I need a round bristle brush for styling...but I digress.
We dragged
our fannies by shuttle to the hotel. It's now 1:30am. We find our rooms,
lay our heads down. Sleep briefly, wake, wash with our toy size items,
and deal with the absence of hair care products and see if we can get
to Seattle after all.
As we
board the new plane, we greet our old friends from the night before,
exchanging our various perceptions of this event. Can it be? The door
is closing, we're buckled, we taxi, we're positioned, we're taking off?
No we're
turning around and heading back to the gate. Again. There's a medical
emergency. A pregnant women. Please god, let her be okay. There's a
quiet hush over the crowd. Mixed feelings, and for once, no one has
an opinion, or a militant attitude. Just each of us quiet with our own
private prayers for her and her baby's well being. Once more we taxi
out, we take off and subsequently, we land. We're so grateful to be
anywhere but Cincinnati as we say goodbye to our new best friends. We
would remember the navy pilot who smelled the smoke, the middle aged
lady with blond hair and a pink cardigan who knew everything there was
to know about blues music. Go figure.
When
we see Debi we're animated and excited, have a laugh, let it go, and
move on.
The show
in Kirkland was magic and the day after that we flew to Idaho Falls
for a show there. We had a blast as we knew that our travel problems
are based on statistics and that it was just going to be what is was
going to be. Life in general is crazy and unpredictable, but that together
we could endure what would overcome us if we had to do it alone. We
get to do what we love to do, and with your girlfriends by your side,
or across the isle from you - it's just another adventure.
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