Not Another Flight from Hell – An Ode to Military Humor

On our last day in Hawaii, we decided not to do any activities that would jeopardize our planned departure from Hawaii the next day.  Both of my kids were clamoring for me to take them to the beach once again.  However, I told them that a day at the beach was not going to happen.  I informed them that we had a couple other activities that we just had to get done.  And here’s the thing, when you tell kids bullshit like that (and it is bullshit), they usually generally always believe you because parents wouldn’t lie to their children.  Now, did we really need to get these other activities done?  No.  But they didn’t know that.  Besides, I wanted to see the North end of the island and the Dole pineapple plantation.  I had heard that the tour of the Dole pineapple plantation was really cool.  Well, it turns out it wasn’t that great but if you’ve never been to a pineapple plantation, it was worth the visit.  Later that evening, we got ready to leave Hawaii.  We were headed to Tacoma, Washington, enroute to Fargo, North Dakota where we would pick up my red Chevy van and visit my brothers and my parents.  That was the plan.  The next day, we headed over to Honolulu International Airport to catch our flight to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport aboard United Airlines.  I can assure you that I was not having any recurring nightmares of a “Flight from Hell.”  Cuz I knew that my family and I were flying aboard a civilian airline.  Sure, I knew that we would be flying in coach, and I knew that there was a possibility that my son could possibly turn this flight into a flight from hell.  After all, he had earned the nicknames the Master of Disasterand Trouble with a (capital) T.  But I had painstakingly stocked up on Dramamine to knock that boy out once that plane took off.  No, I wasn’t going to turn him into a drug addict.  I was just going to give him enough Dramamine to make him sleep so that we could have some peace and quiet.  I had also asked the doctors over at Tripler Army Medical Center to hook me up with something to make him sleep on the airplane so that he wouldn’t bother other people.  That was my justification – so that he wouldn’t bother other people.  Cuz, let me tell you, he had made my life a living nightmare on the flight from Korea to Hawaii until a kind doctor on the plane stepped in to help me out.  So, when I mentioned that I wasn’t having visions of a “Flight from Hell,” I spoke the truth, but I was still having some misgivings.  I couldn’t put my finger on the cause of my uneasiness.  However, something was causing my sixth sense to sing like the fat lady in the opera.  Why?  Only time would tell.  We arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare.  We had all of our luggage and all of our children and everything seemed to be in order.  What could be wrong?  We got to the departures counter at United Airlines where the agent told us that our flight had been canceled.  GR8!  Great!  Suddenly, nightmare visions of my “Flight from Hell Revisited” daydream scenarios came rushing back to me in living color.  When I was talking with those doctors at Tripler Army Medical Center, I should have asked for medication to deal with my anxiety.  But I wanted to prove that I was tough so I didn’t.  Big mistake.  All of those scenarios that I delineated in my post “Flight from Hell Revisited” came rushing back to me as if they were occurring for the very first time.  Except this time, at least one or two of those scenarios could come true.  Shit, shit, shit!  Damn, damn, damn!  What in the hell was I thinking.  Apparently I had been lost in a fog caused by my own panic and anxiety because I did not hear the United agent repeatedly interjecting, “Excuse me Sir.  Excuse me Sir.”  Finally, my daughter yanked on my shirt and said, “Daddy, I think the lady wants to talk to you.”  I looked around like a lost alcoholic in a drunken stupor and stuttered, “Wa… Wah… What lady?”  “That lady,” my daughter exclaimed, pointing at the United agent!  “Oh, I knew that.”  I retorted.  I looked at the agent and said, “Yes, ma’am.  You were saying?”  The agent replied, “Yes.  We do have another flight leaving in four hours.  I can put you on that flight.”  “Four hours?!?  Do you know how hard it is to entertain two young children in an airport with nothing to do for four hours?”  “Yes Sir.  I am so sorry for the inconvenience, Sir.  I can make up for the inconvenience by comping you with first-class tickets.”  “Did I just hear you correctly?  Did you just say that you would upgrade us to first-class?”  “Yes Sir.”  “Okay.  It’s done.  Book us on that flight.”  Well, we ended up killing the next four hours hanging out in the airport entertaining the children.  Basically, we visited every shop in the joint and ate in one of the fast food restaurants just to make the kids happy.  The time passed relatively quickly and soon we were boarding our flight to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.  True to her word, the United agent had upgraded us to first-class.  I do believe that this was the very first time that I had ever flown first-class.  It was indeed a pleasurable event.  I don’t remember what movies were showing and what meals they served.  But they treated my wife and I like king and queen.  The flight attendants wrote on my son’s cast and basically babied him.  Soon he was asleep.  He slept for most of the flight.  Other than the fiasco with the canceled flight, when we first arrived at the airport, we experienced no exercises in futility and our flight was actually not a flight from hell, rather it was actually quite pleasant.

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