Adventures in Travelling, chapter 6
After several uneventful trips, we find our author onboard a flight to Denver; not her favorite place to fly into after an eventful landing in a spectacular lightning storm ten years earlier.
It's just a short hop from Salt Lake City to Denver, a little jaunt across the Rockies. It should be about an hour, gate to gate. Fortunately, her seat request had been traded for a seat assignment just before the boarding announcement. Our author finds herself in an aisle seat, with a quiet 20-something woman at the window, and takes a deep breath. The CRJ700 pulls back from the gate, taxis down the runway and takes off into the bright and sunny skies above the Great Salt Lake.
And then it began.
Window shade down. Window shade up. Window shade half-way down. Window shade three-quarters of the way down. Window shade up. Window shade down.....
For the entire flight.
Obviously our author has drawn the short straw this trip and is seated next to an extremely anxious young woman with OCD.
Finally, the plane begins its descent into Denver. Thank the gods! our author thinks.
The plane levels off, stopping its descent. For half an hour, as the plane makes successive left-hand turns in the skies above Colorado, her seatmate applies lipstick - four times - and eyeshadow - twice - and mascara (!). Window shade up. Window shade down. Hair in a ponytail. Hair down. With the inspiring addition of a heavy sigh every 2 minutes or so.
Our author was, at this point, fervently wishing for a prescription pad and the license to prescribe valium.
At last the thunderstorm cell moved away from the airport, and our author's flight discontinued its holding pattern. The one-hour flight had taken two, but after a few bumps in the air on the way down, they were safely on the tarmac.
It's just a short hop from Salt Lake City to Denver, a little jaunt across the Rockies. It should be about an hour, gate to gate. Fortunately, her seat request had been traded for a seat assignment just before the boarding announcement. Our author finds herself in an aisle seat, with a quiet 20-something woman at the window, and takes a deep breath. The CRJ700 pulls back from the gate, taxis down the runway and takes off into the bright and sunny skies above the Great Salt Lake.
And then it began.
Window shade down. Window shade up. Window shade half-way down. Window shade three-quarters of the way down. Window shade up. Window shade down.....
For the entire flight.
Obviously our author has drawn the short straw this trip and is seated next to an extremely anxious young woman with OCD.
Finally, the plane begins its descent into Denver. Thank the gods! our author thinks.
The plane levels off, stopping its descent. For half an hour, as the plane makes successive left-hand turns in the skies above Colorado, her seatmate applies lipstick - four times - and eyeshadow - twice - and mascara (!). Window shade up. Window shade down. Hair in a ponytail. Hair down. With the inspiring addition of a heavy sigh every 2 minutes or so.
Our author was, at this point, fervently wishing for a prescription pad and the license to prescribe valium.
At last the thunderstorm cell moved away from the airport, and our author's flight discontinued its holding pattern. The one-hour flight had taken two, but after a few bumps in the air on the way down, they were safely on the tarmac.