Day 17 - Glad to be home

Oh my goodness I hate flying. O'Hare is the world's worst airport (at least of the few dozen that I've been too anyway). I didn't have time for lunch yesterday b/c my flight to Richmond was delayed and I had to haul booty down the highway to meet the client on time. And then today, we got on the plane in Chicago to head back to Tulsa 20 minutes after we were supposed to take off. To make matters worse.........well, maybe I should back up a bit here.

My flight from Richmond landed at O'Hare at gate F9. My flight for Tulsa took off from gate B22. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the metropolis that is O'Hare, that's some serious ground to cover. Luckily, I had an hour to do it, but still! Anyway, so when I was finally approaching my gate (which is at the end of concourse B and somewhat secluded), I can hear this one woman's voice above all the rest. She sounded like she was from up north somewhere (I would soon find out she is from New York City). So I look around for somewhere to sit (fat chance) and finally settle on standing near the ticket counter b/c we were going to begin boarding in a few minutes (or so I thought). As I'm standing there, this woman is going on and on to some man sitting next to her, laughing really loud the whole time. Then out of nowhere, she smacks the guy and says "ball-cock-a**hole"! I tried my hardest not to react to this in the normal fashion, but could not help staring open-mouthed at this woman (she's probably around my age). After the initial shock of the blatant profanities streaming from her wide open mouth, I realized that she has tourettes syndrome. Boy did I feel like a butt for staring. Oh well, we all make mistakes right?

So a lady comes out and announces that we will soon begin boarding flight whatever to Tulsa. Apparently the word "Tulsa" triggered something in this woman's head, b/c she went absolutely ballistic. She grabbed her things and came over to stand next to me near the jet-way. Throughout this story, try to keep in mind that she apparenty was not blessed with an inside voice (coming from me....this means she talks frickin' loud people). She gets about two inches from my face (you can imagine my reaction to this) and starts this dialogue:

Her: "Are you going to Tulsa?"
Me: "Yes"
Her: "Do you live in Tulsa?"
Me: "Yes"
Her: "OH MY GOD....DO YOU KNOW HANSON.....I LOVE HANSON......I'M GOING TO TULSA TO SEE THEM......MY MOM AND DAD ARE COMING WITH ME.....MY MOM EVEN HAS THE POSTER THAT I MADE TO SHOW THEM WHEN I GET TO TULSA"
Me: "Good for you" (I really didn't know what else to say)
Her: "So have you ever seen Hanson?"
Me: "No, Tulsa is pretty big"
Her: "My Mom says that Tulsa is small compared to New York City and nasty b/c it's in the middle of the country"
Me: "Oh" (can't wait to meet her Mom at this point)
Her: "ball-cock"
Me: Complete silence - pretending to text message someone on my phone

Apparently something else caught her attention at that point, because she repeated the same conversation with another unfortunate soul standing nearby. Then her parents showed up to stand next to her (probably in their early sixties). They had just come from the bathroom. I know this because her Mom let everyone within earshot know that she had a really bad case of diarrhea and was really scared to get back on a plane. Great! I'm so glad these people are on my flight. Enter the ticket agent to save the day. I got on the plane in the first group of people, thankful that the family from Hades was not in pursuit, which means that they are at the front of the plane as opposed to the back with me. WRONG! After everyone had boarded the plane, these three come skipping down the aisle and plop themselves in row 18 (last row). Yours truly is in row 16. No freakin' way. It's a two hour flight! Someone please tell me this is not happening.

The flight attendant closed the cabin door and we pushed off. She's back there asking what every little noise is (extremely loudly) and saying all sorts of profanities that I can't even repeat on here. Just when I thought things couldn't get worse, the Mom gets up and yells at the flight attendant (who is in the very front doing the whole 'exits are here' thing) asking her how to open the bathroom door. The flight attendant comes back and politely asks her to please wait until we have reached our cruising altitude to use the facilities. Mom informs her that if she doesn't get to use the bathroom right that instant, she's going to crap all over her seat. The flight attendant let her into the bathroom, and phoned the cockpit to inform the pilots that we would have to wait to take-off. We sat on the tarmac for 30 minutes waiting for this woman to get done crapping while listening to her daughter say "Mom......stop pooping, we have to go to Tulsa to see Hanson". When she was finally done, we had lost our slot on the runway and had to wait another 20 minutes to take-off. We finally take-off, and the Mom starts totally wiggin' out. I mean, like white knuckle "what is that sound" wiggin' out. Every time the plane did anything, she freaked. When the pilot pulled the landing gear up, she screamed bloody murder. Seriously?

So I'm thinking that this flight can't get any worse, but again I was wrong. Between bouts of blurting profanity, the twenty-something lady with tourettes syndrome decided to serenade us with her rendition of 'Mmmmm Bop' repeatedly. Lovely. I didn't particularly enjoy that song when it first came out. I definitely do not like her version with the f-word thrown in for effect.

She kept looking out the window and asking which city we were flying over. Who cares!

Her Mom asked the guy right in front of her if Tulsa is as nasty as everyone says it is. He politely thanked her for insulting everyone on the plane, and then informed her that Tulsa is a lovely city. I happen to agree to him by the way.

Anyway, so the captain turns the fasten seat belt light back on, and the flight attendant informs everyone that we will be making our initial descent into Tulsa (this gets the expected reaction from you know who). So Mom decides that her butt is about to explode once again, and jumps up and goes to the bathroom. The flight attendant comes back and knocks on the door to let her know that she really needs to get back to her seat and fasten her seat belt. Mom tells her she can't b/c she's really sick and will probably be there for awhile. The flight attendant gets on the phone to the cockpit and informs the pilot that we have a crapper.....again. We circled the skies above Tulsa for 15 minutes waiting for poopy pants to finish b/c apparently the ride was going to be really bumpy (it was in fact) going through the clouds on the way down. Un-freakin'-real.

In closing, I would just like to say that I am in no way making fun of tourettes syndrome. I think it is a very unfortunate disease and truly feel for anyone that has been affected by it. But seriously, this was just too good not to share. I mean, you can't make this stuff up.

Oh yeah, and I didn't smoke today either. 17 days!

God Bless,
The Quitter.