Pandora's Box of Flying

Wow, I had an amazing time in Reno and you can bet your bottom dollar that a recap is coming. I met the Jennifer, Laurie, Mike, Gloria, Tina, Kim, Sheila and so many others! I need some time to try wrap my head around everything that happened there. But first, I wanted to tell you all how I did with my first, second, third, forth flight :) Hold on to your skivvies kids, it a long one!

For those who might be unaware or new to this blog, I have never flown prior to June 11^th 2008. I have always been afraid to fly ever since a doctor told me that I could lose the rest of my hearing and obviously this a moot point now. What was stopping me? A little thing called spiraling out of control, crashing and burning was stopping me. I consider myself extra special precious cargo and my life and every single second of it are invaluable. The unfathomable idea of ascending 40,000 feet in the air coupled with the fact that I am still a mortal being, a bionic mortal being, but a mortal being nevertheless did not bode well for my central nervous system. I was so anxious that I had to have my wonderful friend, Alex who is a Southwest employee talk me through every single step of the entire purchase process. After two hours of whining, I finally clicked the purchase button but not before an ounce of sweat oozed from my body. In alcoholic terms, this might have not been a bad thing but there was nothing potable about sweat unless you are a vegetarian.

Every time that someone even talked to me about getting on that plane, my palms would start sweating and my breathing would become labored. It wasn’t pretty. There isn’t many things that can send me into a full-blown panic attack but flying was one of them. I managed to keep myself busy to avoid actually thinking about it. I had everything planned out. I had maps. I had boarding passes. I had the security protocols. I had carry-on and checked baggage requirements. I was fully prepared for anything or so I thought.

I went to work on Tuesday and I left a couple of hours early because I had to leave my house at 2:30 am to make my 5:30am plane out of Philadelphia Airport. All the common sense in the world told me to pack my luggage and get to sleep early but by the time I got myself packed, my stomach was is a series of knots. I had this feeling that I was forgetting something. I kept hounding Alex and Geo online with my whacked out and completely unsubstantiated concerns. I wholeheartedly appreciate you two listening to me and I know it wasn't easy dealing with a crazed lunatic about to fly. Anyway, before I knew it, it was 1:00 in the morning was here and I had to get ready. I have been up for nineteen and half hours already.

It was 2:30 in the morning and I gave my mom and my dog a hug like it was the last time I was ever going to hug them. Perhaps I was a bit melodramatic but I was having a hell of a time suppressing this horrible sinking feeling that something was going to go wrong. Regardless I trekked on with the ultimatum because if I can get a cochlear implant, I can get on a damn plane to go to this HLAA convention because this is something that I needed to do for my own personal enrichment. Since I wasn’t going to cancel, I did the next best thing, I cried the whole way to the airport.

I cried just about the whole way, an hour and a half to the airport, tears streaming down my cheek effortlessly and my nose producing plenty of olfactory lubrication. I realized what I forgot to pack ­─ Kleenex.

Once I pulled myself into the economy parking lot, I told myself I could do this, just get out of the damn car and do this. After all the chances of being in a car crash on the way to the airport is much greater than an airplane crashing. Did you all know that? I knew it and I did not give a rat’s ass.

I whimpered as I got out and grabbed my luggage. I turned around in circles viewing the 6,000 some odd parking spaces for the shuttle. I saw something in the distance that looked like a bus stop. I ominously walked towards it. Once in the airport, I had no time to dwell on the morbid images freely flowing though my noggin. I had to check in my luggage, get the boarding pass, go through security, Purelled the bottom of my feet and find the gate. Note to self: wear socks next time.

They started to call people by rows but I could not hear the lovely agent of Continental Airlines because she felt the need to hide behind a wall and while she spewed out the numbers. This did not bode well for the deaf one here. So I found myself frantically glancing people's tickets to see if their row matched my row. Lucky be a lady and as it just so happened, a woman next to me had the same row. I followed her when she got up, presented my first official boarding pass to the agent and motioned me towards a dank cavern. I walked cautiously down the hall clearly showing my inexperience with rolling luggage...

I found my seat and I stuffed my 10 pairs of shoes in the overhead. I looked out the window and gasped at the sheer size of the wing. I started to get antsy because I wanted to get this show in the sky. They played a video that revealed all the important stuff like where the oxygen mask and life preservers were housed. How nice of them to caption it on a monitor the size of a CD case. I could hardly see the captioning!

We started moving and so did my blood pressure. I began to perform my self-taught by television Lamaze breathing techniques at this point. The jet roared its engines and sped down the runway and all of the sudden, there was no road noise. This was not so bad. My golly, we were flying! Land ahoy!

Five minutes later, I heard chimes and then the pilot made an announcement over the speakerphone. Mind you, I did not catch the entire announcement but I have all of you know that us deaf people are pretty damn good at piecing together the context of a sentence if words are missing. I am going to poll you people and let us see what you get when you hear just these words.

sorry - plane - mechanical problems - Philly - 15 minutes

I'll even give you a couple minutes to mull it over... If you guessed that there was a mechanical problem with the plane and we must had to back to Philly and ETA is 15 minutes, my god my good people, you are absolutely correct! I can’t make this stuff up.

But wait, it gets better! I am counting every single second to avoid hyperventilating; I noticed the pilot was just circling over the Philadelphia Airport for over a half hour, well beyond the 15 minutes estimate. I hear another announcement over the speakerphone. Quiz time again!

cannot - land - plane - divert - accommodate - Newark - 10 minutes

Alrighty then, the pilot could not land the plane in Philadelphia and we were being diverted to Newark Airport because they could accommodate us with an estimated time of arrival of 10 minutes.

If I was pregnant, I think I would have gone into labor right then and there. I was freaking out. I hide it well but I was on the verge of tears but I had none left after the hour and half long crying episode on the way to the airport. This was the beginning of a nightmare. I had a strange thought in my head: maybe I misunderstood the pilot. I’ve been known to misunderstand people especially over speakerphones. I decided to ask the cowboy with the alligator cowboy hat and a beer belly the size of Memaloose Island, Idaho to clarify the pilot announcement. Unfortunately, I heard this announcement right.

“Ma’am is this your first flight?” He asked.

“Yep.” I said through a deep breath.

He starts to laugh revealing his tobacco-stained teeth. I don’t think he wasn’t in a hurry to tend to the cattle back home in Texas.

Once we got to Newark, I got my ass off that plane quicker then you can say Chewbacca! They decided to retire the aircraft that I personally thought was the great idea! We had to wait around for another plane that was hopefully mechanically problem free to be loaded up with our luggage. While there were taking their sweet time to load the luggage back on the new plane, I ended up missing my connecting flight in Houston (which is by the way where I started to blog) to Reno. While I was waiting I text my friend who just found out she is preggers with "If I die in a plane crash will you name your baby after me?" She texted me back with, "No lol."

The plane was ready and I was in no particular hurry to get back on the plane. I was one of the last one to board and once I sat down, I buckled my seatbelt and we take off ─ again! I kept peering out my window that was fit for a dollhouse trying to recall the rate of acceleration of a falling object just in case something went wrong, I wanted to have ample time to say my prayers. My eyes must have refueled themselves because every time I looked out my window I would start to cry. I think if a good healthy dose of Xanax were offered to me, I would have snatched it up by the bottle. Actually, any bottle would have been good.

Houston around 12:30 in one piece. I had to go to the ticket counter to get my new flight plans. I was expecting an easy non-stop direct flight right to Reno but no such luck! I had to go to ─ LOS ANGELES AIRPORT! That scared the hell of me. I hear horror stories in Los Angeles. I kept questioning the customer service rep if she was really sure that was the only airport I could go to. After repeating mself for the fifth time, “Really? Los Angeles?” I could see I was getting under her skin. She handed me the boarding pass and I could see that I had fifteen minutes to board the plane. I hauled ass because I was in Terminal A and had to power walk to catch a train to Terminal E to board the plane. Note to self: do not wear heels while flying. This is was such a lovely start to my vacation, don't you all agree?

I cannot make this stuff up. I board the plane and I had the unfortunate experience of sitting next to two individuals that reeked of rice vinegar. When I finally got to Los Angeles, I smelled like a stir fry. At first glance, everything that I ever read about LA suddenly became true. It was nothing but smog and it smelled! I thought to myself how much better New Jersey smells and I never thought I would say that. This huge grey cloud just lingered over the city. It took me no time at all to realized just how big Los Angeles Airport is. I was trying to find the gate to my connecting flight to Reno and I couldn’t find it. I had a Continental boarding pass. I just came out of a Continental gate. Common logic proceeds to tells me that Continental that would be flying me to Reno. Apparently, logic does not work here because I stopped to ask for direction for the hidden gate and I was informed that my connecting flight was Alaska Airlines which appears NOWHERE on my boarding pass.

I discovered quickly how Los Angeles airport does not accommodate deaf people well. Between the jets roaring, the baggage couriers bustling, women’s heels clicking, escalators rotating, cash registering ringing and people chatting, I had a hell of a time trying to understand what terminal Alaska Airlines was and it was not a good time for me to have a dead cell phone. I had to find a shuttle bus marked "A" which took me roughly 45 minutes to track down in that mess of an airport. Once I board the shuttle bus, the bus driver spoke with a distinct Nigerian accent. We had a wee bit trouble understanding one another but he got me to Alaska Airlines in Terminal 3!

I had to go through the whole security scan again with taking my shoes off. I am a little anal about where I put my feet. I ran to the nearest bathroom and doused my feet and its ten pigs with Purell. While I was in there, I decided to wash my face and pretty myself up for Reno. I found my gate and sat right in front of it. I was not moving a muscle as long as I had Gate #33 in my line of sight. I turned around there was a Samsung charging station situated right next to me. Things were looking up! I plugged my cell phone and whined to my mom whose only response was, "Only you Abbie, only you." I was two hours away from my destination and I didn’t think it could get any worse, .

I was clearly wrong. We got on board and I didn’t even take a look at the plane as I was walking up the steps. I took a seat to the window and took a look to my right and I saw PROPELLERS! Big ol' black honking PROPELLERS! I was on a friggen PROPELLER PLANE.

My nerves were officially shot at this point. To make matters worse, the pilot was an honorary a tour guide. All I heard him say that this was a beautiful scenic route and I flipped my CI off. I was not the least bit interested in him selling me snow peaked mountains and rugged terrain that we could just spiral down into and no one would know how to find us. How I managed NOT to have a panic attack, one will never know. After him flying over the Pacific Ocean and veering back over mountain, I think my heart stopped working. About ten minutes later, I looked out my window and saw images that resembled Google Satellite. That was just a testament of how high in the air I was! I was not handling this situation well at all.

Finally, I arrived in Reno at 7:30pm pacific time. I head off to baggage claim and I was fully expecting my luggage to be lost. That would have been the icing on the entire trip but my luggage arrived safe. I don't think I would have cared if it was lost. I hopped on the hotel shuttle and officially started my vacation and it only took 17 hours!

Later on that evening, I met a guy from Australia and as it turns out, he got to Reno quicker then I did.

My flight plan...