...there was a horrible storm. I wasn't visiting DC, I was flying back from Buffalo, of all places, where I had spent a few weeks on business. Anyway, being a nosy little shit I always enjoyed plugging in my headphones and instead of listening to music, going to the channel (channel 2 or something like that) where you could hear the radio chatter between your plane and the tower (and other planes). For some perverse reason, I always wanted to know what was going on. Big Mistake.
We'd been waiting in line for three hours (this was over ten years ago) and it was sweltering onboard while this thunderstorm raged outside over DC. I like sitting on the wing and at least once I saw a little mini-vortex of rain/wind swirling on the wing while the aluminum skin was being pelted hard with heavy rain. So we're in line with other planes (at some point a few of the planes pulled out because of a brief break in the clouds) and I get this amazing sense of relief as I hear all the planes in our line chickening out and pulling out of line or whatever- all I could really see was out my window and hear the radio. The weather was still, apparently, too bad to take off in.
And then I hear some asshole pilot, some crazy asshole pilot saying shit like "I can take it, I'm going to go for it!"
And the tower is like "Oh, you really don't want to be doing that." and he's all like (and this is obviously paraphrasing) "I'm going to take off and pull a U-ie (U-turn) so I avoid the storm in front of us!"
And I'm thinking "Jesus, what a fucking insane dude this is, those poor passengers have no fucking idea." when I notice our plane is moving- not to pull off the runway though, like the other planes. It's the one with the crazy mother fucking pilot- I'd heard my pilot talking!
This story is so bizarre, I really don't give a shit if anyone believes it but there had been an empty seat between my colleague and I and before all of this crazy shit happened a disheveled woman had asked us if she could switch seats to sit between us. For some reason the first thing I flashed on was she was so shaken up was because she was with a male who was threatening her or something like that. She looked flustered and scared. We both asked her what was going on and she said she was a school teacher on a "field trip" to DC with her class (who the fuck can afford that?!) and that one of her kids (they were all like 11-13) hadn't showered or bathed the whole time and he stank so bad she could not take it anymore. The kid actually walked passed us to go to the bathroom before the plane took off and he reeked. If you have never smelled a fucking reeking person in your life, you can only imagine how bad it smells. I have no idea what was up with this kid, he couldn't have been older than 13 or at the oldest 14.
William S. Burroughs, in one of his books or short stories had once used the phrase (or something similar to) "the gray smell of anal mucous". It is a penetrating smell, all dead skin and unwashed ass and god knows what else...but not like armpit stink.
Anyway, so she was all kinds of unsettled even after sitting with us for about half an hour and as I'm hearing our pilot proclaiming his kamikaze run (in my left ear), she's leaning over on my right and starts to freak out because the world looks like it's ending in a rainstorm/tornado outside and we're heading into it.
I remember looking at her and going "It's going to be OK." at the moment the tower said "Ok, man, it's your call" as our plane was already barreling down the runway.
I totally thought I was going to die, die, die like the real non-theatrical death that day. The pilot did exactly what he said he would, pulled a U turn right after we took off and within something insane like 90 seconds we were above the clouds and it was the most beautiful day up there.
Business trips eat dog shit.
PB
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