When my brother called to say he would buy me a ticket back home, it was 10 am on Wednesday morning. I was on my way to work and we decided to buy the ticket for Thursday evening. The funeral was on Friday morning at 10:30am and I would be landing at 8:30am. We would be cutting it fine but my brother assured me he would get us there on time. The women in his life, i.e. my mother and I, doubted him. As women we felt obliged to worriedly consider the worse case scenarios.
It must be known that this would be my very first solo flight. I have an irrational fear of airports. They seem huge and complicated; a place that I could easily get lost in, miss my flight and if I ever did find my way, I would be refused entry into the country. If this trip had been planned months in advance I would have been a nervous wreck. It was a blessing that it was so last minute as I didn’t have time to consider the worst case scenarios; I just simply had to go.
It turns out that I was slightly justified to have worried. When we flew to London back in October, I booked my ticket under my married name and produced my marriage certificate when showing my passport which was in my maiden name. There were no problems. But this time, flying a different airline, this was a problem. They would not check me onto the flight. The only thing I could do was to buy another ticket. It was at this point that I began to cry. I was already emotional about my granddad, nervous flying on my own and apprehensive about making it to the funeral on time. Now we had to buy another ticket. I felt like saying “See! I told you so. Airports are evil!” As there was no other option, we purchased another ticket. They reassured us we would be refunded, but would have to pay £25 admin fee. I doubt whatever admin was done was really worth the £25.
The check in lady, after seeing my tears I assume, offered to find me a better seat on the plane as I was sitting in the middle of the middle aisle. After going through security and the passport control, I arrived at the gate just as they were boarding the plane. I was asked to take a seat as they were still trying to get me a better seat. I waited half an hour before they conceded that all the seats were taken and I had to settle for the seat I was given. My seat, 58E was in the centre of a school trip, which was made up of a group of 16 year old boys. The up side was that I had someone to help me put my case in the overhead compartment. That and the fact that if I had wanted to, I could have farted away to my hearts content and no one would have noticed as there was farting going on all around me. An unpleasant smell would soon be accompanied by “Ah! Dude! No!” and then raucous laughter.
What I had been looking forward to on the flight were the 11 hours worth of movies I was going to watch. However the four screens in my row didn’t seem to be working. I waved my hand to get the attention of the air hostess. I could see her looking at me but she didn’t move. I gave her the benefit of the doubt and waved my arm more frantically in the air. Again she didn’t respond; yet I knew she was looking directly at me. I was about to be outraged when I realised that she was actually waiting to start the safety demonstration. Instead I sank down as low as possible in my chair, hopefully unnoticed by any judgemental 16 year olds present.
Regardless of no in flight entertainment the entire journey, it wasn’t an entirely bad trip. The food was tasty, the service was good; and I took a sleeping tablet accompanied by a glass of red wine and passed out for the duration of the flight…..
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