Flying the friendly — and not-so-friendly — skies

To the seasoned traveler, I’m sure it sounds a bit naive, but when my wife revealed her plan for us to travel to Hawaii for my 60th birthday, one of the things I was most excited about was the thought of flying to and from. As a lifelong map geek and frequent Google Maps desktop explorer, I can think of only a handful of thrills bigger than looking out the window of an airplane and figuring out exactly where I am based on the landscape 32,000 feet below.

On our blue sky, five-hour flight from Atlanta to Seattle, I was able to see the ground nearly all of the way. There were rivers and lakes, mountains and prairies, highways and cities, and even vast expanses where there appeared to be no trace of civilization at all. (Turned out the latter was South Dakota.)

Given the cavalier disposition of everyone else on the flight, at least those passengers above the age of 10, I was led to conclude the entire world has become joyless and cynical in their old age. They watched movies, read books or even closed their window blinds and nodded off to sleep.

None of that for me. I was so entranced by the land below that I nearly missed my “in-flight meal” of seven almonds and a Dixie cup of ginger ale. By the time we touched down on the West Coast, I’d snapped over 100 pictures, and my neck had been cocked toward the window for so long I spent the majority of our two-hour layover in Washington State looking like I’d accidentally glued my chin to my shoulder.

“This is the greatest thing ever,” I told Kristin as we sat at the gate awaiting our next flight. “I can’t wait to see what it’s like over the ocean.”

That ocean flight, however, would prove itself a different beast altogether. Our first clue came with this announcement as we waited at the gate to board the plane.

“Attention passengers of Flight 344, we’d like to offer overnight accommodations and a $750 travel voucher to passengers who would agree to opt for a later flight to your destination of Lihue.”

It was a generous offer, and had we not already had a room ready and waiting in Hawaii, we would have jumped at it. Such was apparently the case with all the other passengers as well.

Given the nonresponse, the airline upped the ante: “Attention passengers, due to unusually high headwinds, we are increasing that voucher value to $1,000 in hopes of adding some additional fuel in place of passenger weight.”

A hush fell over the crowd as passengers like me did mental math to determine just how many gallons of jet fuel could be gained for the weight of one human body. Passengers like Kristin pondered in a whimpering murmur how close we were actually cutting this thing if we needed to shed carcass weight just to be sure we didn’t drop into the sea.

“Um, is this a normal thing?” Kristin whispered to a neighbor who seemed unaffected by the startling revelation.

“Probably,” she said, “But I really feel the crew might be oversharing on this one.”

Several passengers graciously (and rapidly) opted out.

“Yay, more fuel,” I laughed to Kristin. “Now we can make it all the way to the island.”

She did not laugh back.

In retrospect, had the crew simply mentioned the flight would include an extra hour of hair-raising, nail-biting torment in total darkness over a boundless and bottomless sea, they could have taken on all the fuel they could ever wish for.

Kristin and John Lorson would love to hear from you. Write Drawing Laughter, P.O. Box 170, Fredericksburg, OH 44627, or email John atjlorson@alonovus.com.