EPISODE 839 TRAVEL NIGHTMARE…LONDON TO TORONTO JUNE 21 AND 22, 223…TORTURE!
alan skeoch
June 22, 2023
Flying is not a happy experience. Note the exhausted care giver flat out on the floor as she awaits the ‘special loading’
of ill or handicapped passengers. We were in this crowd. Note Marjorie perched on her own luggage. And we were special.
This did not bode well.
No, we were going to London, England rather than Singapore but the problem remains the same. How can 300 people
be packed into a jumbo jet? How is it done? What does it feel like? Can I survive?”
THE TRIP HOME WAS TORTURE….EDGAR ALLAN POE KIND OF TORTURE
I would prefer to forget the last 48 hours. Sheer torture of the thousand cuts kind. We were tricked by
the beautiful sunshiny day in England when we awoke at 4 a.m., june 21, 2023. Great to be alive kind of day in the
early morning daylight.
Marjorie was busy packing our bags for the return flight to Toronto supposedly take off time was high noon
from HeathRow. That flight never happened,
TIME LINE 8 A.M., JUNE 21: “Alan, just got word our flight is cancelled due to a technical issue whatever that means.”
TIME LINE 10 a.m. June 21: “Alan, new flight will be tonight 1120…midnight
SHORT VERSION OF EVENTS
1) Awoke at 4 a.m June 21 Shenley, England
2) Next sleep was 3.30 a.m. June 22, 2023 in Toronto…30 hours later.
SHORTER VERSION
1) WE have been awake for 29 hours and 45 minutes give or take an hour/
No sleep for nearly 30 hours,
2) Tortured for 7 hours in an airplane seat designed for children. Pure hell
that never seemed to end.
LONG VERISON
1) Flight delay for 12 hours from 12 noon to 12 midnight
2) Packed jumbo jet with 300 very unhappy passengers some of whom must have been medicated comatose
3) My seat was 53H, aisle seat with large jolly man as partner. I knew he was jolly because he kept pushing
buttons to help me with the Tv screen. His body began an amicable takeover…
4) Easy for him to do so because his body overlapped my body by about one third. We shared
my arm rest until he fell asleep and took full arm rest and a nice slice of my seat surface. Not his fault but
seat designers must have known.
5) I decided to give up territory and turned my body right angle. …which meant both feet were now
in public space as stewardess gently reminded me.
6) I have a bad knee….painful so decided to walk the aisles for the fulll 7 hours and 45 minutes of the flight
7) Woman in centre seat noticed my agony so we both tried to lift the aisle side seat arm rest. Failed.
8) Young man in aisle seat ahead of me got up and helped me escape the Edger Allan Poe seat.
(*Edger Alan Poe wrote novel about a room too small for the human body) I popped out like a Champaign cork.
9) became an unhappy wanderer of public slit called an aisle. Noticed things. Like the large man… 250 to 300 pounds
who sat aslant in his seat…bum partly on bottom, partly on arm rest. Worse than my fate. Even worse for the man
sitting beside him who seemed about to be engulfed in a wave of human flesh.
10) Others wandered with me. All of us seemed to have been happy passengers on the cancelled flight. “Ive been awake
since four this morning,” was comment we all shared….by then we had been awake for 20 to 24 hours. With more to come.
11) Stewadess found me an middle bulkhead seat….I thanked her before realising The foot space was less than my body length.
Edger Alan Poe came to mind again. I wondered why my mom had named me Alan at that point.
12) I tried a new posture. Kneeled on my seat and faced backward viewing all passengers which included
Marjorie who had a similar large man partner. She was being slowly crushed. which raised another story
for Edgar Alan Poe were he still alive.
13) I noticed Marjorie was the only person wearing a mask in the back of he aircraft. Mine had dropped and was lost
to foot traffic. Was that tiny bastard called Covid 19 hovering in the air.? Which asked another Edger Alan Poe story
that was yet to be written.
14) I was calmed down by the thought that this flight would end soon. We were moving at over 500 miles
per hour. Pain would end soon That thought disintegrated when the pilot eased off on the throttle as we crossed
over Nova Scotia. Why slow down? Only answer I could think of was he wanted to extend the discomfort. A masochist.
And, yes, Edger came to mind once more.
15) “Are we about to land?”, I asked the stewardess and she assured me we still had several hours of flight time. This was
not assurance. This was science fiction….A space/time warp. Then more food was handed out. i thought of a scotch and water
but did not ask. The last time I did that the stewardess poured the whole sample bottle into a cup of crushed ice. Too much. If I was drunk
then pain would ease….was that her thought?
So I let the food amd drink pass by.
16) Our earlier supper arrived at 1 a.m. which ws an odd time to be eating a full course meal. No worries. the meal may
have been good but the cover was put on with super glue. Could not be opened. The bun was good when coupled with
a cold beer. Fulll marks for those two items. Lucky I am left handed and could raise glass to mouth. If I had been right handed
then my jolly rolly polly partner would have made eating and drinking impossible as his mobile flesh began to flow into my territory.
Even so, the hot meal was dumped into the trash. impossible to eat. I had newly sliced two red peppers as rescue food but that
was now three rows behind me where Marjorie must have been enjoying them with. “Alan, let me help you,”
she had said and then neatly took my red peppers. Mean or thoughtful.? Can good intentions be clothed to cover evil
thoughts. Once again Edger Poe came.
TOO MUCH INFORMATION? LETE ME CLOSE WITH THE LIMO SCAM.
Travelling luggage is never light as Marjorie prepares for every possibility including nuclear war.
When I was single and a prospector in the Canadian wilderness my gear for three moths was packed
in a singe rucksack. Today’s baggage consisted of thee suitcases, a pack sack and an immense
purse. We do not travel light which is as much my fault as hers. There were six bottles of English
beer in the bags “because the beer labels are fascinating.”
THE LIMO SCAM
Marjorie flagged down a Limo. Nice guy it seemed as he helped
load the bags and drove us smoothly home.’
“How much ?”
“$57”
“Here take $60 out of this #100 bill.”
“Sorry I have no change.”
RED FLAG! RED FLAG!
THIS SMELLS LIKE A SCAM….HE WANTS MY $100 BILL.
“Let me see if I have $60…need the headlights.”
“There, I have three twenties.”
Driver hung around…seemed unhappy…seemed to want more money…maybe
I should have given him a larger tip. But my mood was vile. Due as much
to the fatigue as to his scam. He got no more from me. He slipped way.
MEANWHILE MARJORIE was hauling the luggage to the house in
the darkness. Had she eaten all my sliced peppers and felt guilty?
As i said, my mood was pure evil. Pure Edger Alan Poe.
POSTSCRIPT: I FIRMLY BELIEVE THAT AIR CANADA IS
AWARE OF THE FAILURE OF THEIR SEAT DESIGN…THAT
MAY BE DELIBERATE…MAKING SEATING UNPLEASANT WILL
ENCOURAGE UPGRADES!
alan skeoch
June 22, 2032