How United Moved From The Bottom, To Below the Bottom, To Back to Regular Bottom
“How United Moved From the Bottom, to Below the Bottom, to a Little back to regular bottom”
I’ve been going through a medical drama that’s not on TV, but is in real life. It’s pretty slow paced and the little moments of conflict are more comedic than the blood spurts you see on ER. Also, it’s not life threatening, so it’s all good. I’ve been vlogging (video blogging) and regular blogging about it but am waiting till the series finale to “release” the full web content ; ) The latest installment happened while 35,000 feet in the air on United Airlines.
United Airlines has been the villain of the skies in the last month. As I’m sure we remember, an airline security man dragged a guy off a plane recently. Why? I don’t know. Maybe the security guard just had a fight with his brother, maybe he was fed up with his small hourly wages, or maybe he had a really itchy tag in his shirt. Whatever the reason, he single handedly removed the word “friendly” from modifying United’s “skies” when he removed the guy quite forcibly down the isle and out the tiny door on the side of the plane, across the little gap where the tunnel doesn’t totally seal around the plane’s door as you step off, and into the little intestinal hallway that leads you to the concourse in the airport where people stare you down because they wanted to board their flight, like, yesterday.
This security guard created a social media nightmare for United. For this reason, it’s been fascinating to observe United employees. On my away flight, it seemed like the pilot and stewards begrudgingly anticipated our hate for them. Once Rob and I were boarded, the “captain speaking” part was three times more muffled than it usually is (a nervous 3rd grader giving a speech about what a pilot does). When the flight attendant asked us to look at the safety instruction sheet she sighed, “I mean if you feel like it” under her breath. What she doesn’t know is how guilty WE felt for having bought a ticket from United. If the United staff had looked up from their sad downcast gazes, they would’ve seen OUR uncomfortable shifty eyes as we mumbled “No beverage cart for me thanks, I don’t deserve it.” I mean, I didn’t want to support this airline, but this was the cheapest and most direct flight I could get…
The flight was bumpy. Very bumpy. I’m convinced the bad weather, which some might argue was out of their control, was definitely because the universe wanted to give United a slap on the wrist. In the same way that you trip on flat ground after laughing at someone fall, or the way my dog used to growl at the Chihuahua and then we’d turn the corner and a mastiff would snap at his face.
After all the air bumps, we circled the arrival city airport. FOR AN HOUR. Because of bad weather and congested traffic patterns. Ugh.
Once our short trip was over, we headed back to LA. And all of the sudden it seemed there was light on the horizon for United! At the gate, we met a personable flight attendant named Angela! She had the self-confidence and charisma of someone who’d never watched the security guard youtube video. We liked her. So much so that after our two minutes of bonding about drinking enough water at high altitudes, we were sad to learn she only served the people in the front half of the plane. Our seat was in the very back. Oh well.
We boarded in better spirits. Angela was on this plane. And she liked to drink water.
Then. … We sat…and sat…and sat.
After an hour, we final moved! The repeated message from the pilot was, “a thing’s not turning on so we just have to fix it and do a little paperwork.” We all hoped the “thing” wasn’t the engine.
It eventually seemed fixed.
We taxied out to the runway.
Then we had to go taxi back.
The “thing” wasn’t fixed.
We sat at the gate for another two hours – a total of three hours since we boarded.
Finally the pilot muffled some information about papers signed and a fuse fixed.
All the passengers cheered!
…I check my watch. Oh no. I had purchased my flight so that the timing of my injectable (yes, that means a 1 ½ inch needle!) medication could be done when I got home that night. That was before United decided to keep proving that they were the fart face of the not friendly skies.
Thankfully, since I personally had not been involved in the dragging of the passenger a few weeks ago (and hence the negative United karma that kept happening), someone out there took pity. Maybe it was the three muses from the Scottish play – who’ve been bored all these years with no Shakespeare to continue their story. So they were “double, double toil and troubling” over United until one of them was like, “Hey – look at that girl who’s worried about her injectable meds” – and the other two were like, “Who cares, give me that wrench so I can short fuse those little bulbs that light the floor of the airplane!” and the first muse was like, “Fine. Here. But I’m also going to help the girl out.” Maybe this muse had a Clarence from It’s A Wonderful Life issue going on and needed to earn her way out of the muse sisters and into angel status or something. Whatever the case, here’s what happened to me:
1) We were in the VERY last row of the plane (which meant no eyes from the seat behind us)
2) This plane had restrooms that were in the front and middle section of the plane – which I’d never seen before. That meant nobody came back and stood next to us to use the bathroom.
3) Nobody was in our middle seat! Which meant we had “tons” of room.
4) The flight attendants were extremely kind and funny.
So, 10pm (shot time) came around and I looked at my husband and he nodded like we were about to go sky diving – which is what it felt like for the entire plane ride because of how bumpy it was, AGAIN.
While I prepped the needle, he did tell the one woman across the isle that he was about to give me a shot in my butt, and she laughed and said she’d give us privacy. Then she continued to peek over her magazine – but it’s okay, how could you not watch someone give injectable meds at 35,000 feet if it was happening an arms length from your face?
I said with great solemnity to the flight attendant, “I have to give myself a shot, can I have some ice?”
She was like, “Oh sure,” and I was disappointed that she wasn’t more shocked. I even hoped the tugboat driver from Alaska in his camo hat might wake up in front of us and turn around to marvel at how brave I was. Nope.
“Okay Rob!” I said, while I turned my right behind cheek towards him and smushed my face against the window. I was missing a few essentials here.
1) My bed (I usually lay down)
2) I usually play Hamilton
But I would be brave and go without.
I counted down from five, which is my routine, “5, 4, 3, 2, 1” and then I dug my fingernails into my palms. This was a poor substitute for what I usually do – hug my Owl I got from Harry Potter World and sing “My Shot” along with Lin Manuel Miranda. Rob gave the shot beautifully – and I’d numbed it so much with the plane ice that I didn’t even realize he was done – which he had to shout to me over the roar of the plane engine.
“Done. Done! I’m DONE!”
“Oh! Great!,” I said, turning around, hoping I’d created a small audience who would clap at my ability to overcome adversity. No audience. Just the snoring tugboat guy and the lady who’d gone back to her magazine. Oh well.
But then Rob said some beautiful words to me. I caught only some of them because of my plugged up high altitude ears, but the best part was the admiration on his face. Truly. I couldn’t have a better partner.
That’s when I realized he was still holding the needle and we quickly capped it and put it in the barf bag in the seat pocket in front of me.