If you haven't guessed yet,(or you're just an idiot), I went to New York.
Oh...but wait.....I haven't told you how I got there.
Because I'm an eager beaver my high school nickname and I have the patience of a toddler, I purposely booked the first flight out of Toronto to New York. I thought the early flight would also work to my advantage since I'm always awake and haven't slept since the summer of '86. However, Wednesday night before I left, I enjoyed some "holy fuck I'm on vacation cocktails" courtesy of my very favourite next door neighbour, who knows how to pour a REAL drink, not the kind where you whip out your shot glass and measure the shot...Fuck that. It's the kind of drink that makes you text "lfkjsofiew I love you" to unassuming contacts in your phone and wake up fully clothed with pizza in your hair...yeah, that kind of drink. And since I continually make poor life choices, I indulged, knowing I had to get up at 3am the next day.
I know you're probably all thinking "OMG. I know where this is going, she missed her flight." Nope. My excitement to get the fuck out of dodge (despite my hangover) literally made me float out of bed. In fact, I'm pretty sure angels washed my hair that morning. Everything felt somehow perfect...car service to the airport was early and super friendly, my hair looked great, and my mega-zit had disappeared. Fuck yes.
I rolled up to the airport and sailed right through security, they even let me bring my nunchucks and machete on board! It was perfect! I'm obviously kidding, I'm just trying to prove a point of how smooth things were going...in reality you can barely sneeze without being tackled to the ground by an airport security guard.
Back to my story....I sat in peace at my gate and stared at my plane, just imagining the possibilities that the city that never sleeps would bring me....(Oh and by "sat in peace" I meant listening to hardcore gangsta rap, while daydreaming of what it would be like to eat a carbohydrate again.)
Then...the time came...boarding time. To really capture the excitement of how I truly felt in that moment, just think of how it would feel to find out you were an audience member during Oprah's Favourite Things show. You know, when she surprises her audience members by giving everyone cars, houses, babies, samurai swords, diamonds, schools, meth, ponies, etc. Actually, come to think of it, the clip below of these audience members was similar to my reaction to the general boarding call to board my flight. Oh, and ONLY watch the reactions, try not to pay attention to the fact that they literally got bags of cash and free shit. It will make you want to go on a 5 state killing spree.
Angry yet?
If not, the rage I'm about to share will make you rage too...
Typically I get seated in the middle seat between people who haven't showered since Lincoln was president, or people who hold our shared arm rest hostage with their elbows for an entire flight. However, to my surprise I got a window seat AND no one sat in my row so I could stretch out. Fuck yes.
Take off was seamless, no turbulence and I was able to stare directly into the sunlight when we got above the clouds, and I had no one to slap me to tell me to stop staring directly into the sunlight. (I used to do this as a little girl and then see spots for days. Perhaps this is why I can only see names of streets if I actually climb the pole and read it.)
To add to my happiness, I discovered I could watch Modern Family for the entirety of this 90 minute flight. Which I did...well actually, I watched it it for 1 hr and 15 minutes to be exact. Why would I remember such a weird detail like that....oh thanks for asking! Here's why.
At approximately 8:15am, I felt the wheels go down from under us to prepare for landing, which made me all tingly in my lady bits. It was at this point I reached down to grab my lip gloss from my bag, which was carefully stowed under the seat in front of me because I'm a rule abiding passenger, and as I slowly raised my head, I happened to look at the screen in the seat in front of me, and there was my plane on the map....looking like it's heading IN THE OPPOSITE GOD DAMN DIRECTION OF NEW YORK. MY PLANE WAS FLYING OVER NEW YORK ON MY SCREEN 30 FUCKING SECONDS AGO....WHERE WERE WE GOING???
"Good Morning ladies and gentlemen, our apologies, but we just received word from Laguardia that the airport has been shut down due to fog, so we're heading back to Toronto folks."
Yup.
It was happening. I sat with my mouth open, as tears welled in my eyes, staring at the screen in front of me as I watched this tiny little vessel of depression plane on the tv travel back to the great white north.
Obviously, I wasn't the only passenger filled with rage, as there were tons of businessmen on my plane and other people who like to enjoy life and start their vacation on time.
So back home we went, with no plan, no idea when we would fly out again because no one knew anything. NOT EVEN THE PEOPLE THAT FLEW US THERE. Wicked! However, the best thing to do when you don't have facts or any information whatsoever, is to make a bigger cluster-fuck of a situation by telling the passengers to literally run off the plane and grab a boarding pass that the agents were handing out at the gate and then RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN TO A GATE AT THE OPPOSITE END OF THE TERMINAL. I didn't question it, I just grabbed a boarding pass and ran...Have I ever told you about my upper lip sweating problem? Yeah, well I have one, and it became evident to all the passengers at my new gate when I got there and saw that there was actually NO plane at the gate. It was at this point I let out a giant "FUCK. FUCK FUCK" This minor meltdown was quickly interrupted by a crochity ticketing agent who was now telling us to go back to our original gate...AT THE OPPOSITE END OF THE TERMINAL. So back we went....Have you ever tried running with hangover and 30 minutes of sleep? It's so fun!
At this point it was about 10am.....I had no idea that I was about to spend 7 blissful hours in the 7th circle of hell...Gate A15. Throughout the day, I came to find out that "A15" stands for "there are a minimum of 15 ASSHOLES at your gate." So how did I pass the time? Thanks for asking!
Well, to make a long, sad, sad, sad story short, I listened to Linda from Windsor talk to her sister (who came in from New Brunswick for her 50th birthday weekend away, and yes I know these details as my iPod died and God hates me) talk about her cat who is dying. Well Linda, maybe your cat is dying because you suck. So shut up. Then, I was followed around by some strange man in track pants and greasy hair for an hour...about 45 minutes into my stalking, I had convinced myself that he was gonna kill me in the airport washroom, and I thought about the gruesome details in my head and then realized that I seriously need to give up watching Criminal Minds before bed. Did you ever see the episode where the serial killer practiced Santeria and beheaded people and then put fake teeth in their mouths?
Next up on the annoyance scale, I sat beside a woman named Pat who was from Saskatoon and had a layover in Toronto and New York while on her way to see visit her friend in Florida, whose husband just left her. So that was a nice depressing conversation which opened my eyes to the painful world of love and life. Thanks Pat! I think it was at this point I excused myself and pretended I had to go to the washroom. (Well I actually went to the washroom, but it was just to cry.) Yes, I cried like a little bitch and then sprayed myself with really expensive Narcisco Rodriguez perfume that I bought at my pity party in Duty Free. I also put on bright red Chanel lipstick for shits and giggles while I was in Duty Free, which made me look like a giant whore, but #YOLO. At this point, I didn't care if the bathroom floor opened up and swallowed me down to the fiery pits of hell.f Oh wait, I was in hell.
Finally, what felt like 372043283476593 hours, they found us a plane, and flew us to the big city and I arrived at around 5pm, and NOT my original arrival time of 8:30am, when I was supposed to land. Me and my rage-filled/excited Canadian heart had finally made it on US soil....Oh, did I mention that two good friends of mine who recently moved to New Jersey were supposed to be meeting me at 1:30pm in New York to hang out...yeah. I missed an entire day with them, which propelled the tears/rage into a category 5 meltdown. And because they are good people and were waiting on the drugs I smuggled they decided to come to the city anyway, and wait for me until I got there.
It was around 5:15pm at Satan's baggage carousel, that I finally started to feel less like Kathy Bates in Misery, and more like Nanners, who was about to begin her vacation. NOT SO FAST NANNERS....MOMMA TOLD YOU THIS LIFE WAS SHIT.
Since 237429 different planes were all given clearance to land at the EXACT same time, we all ended up sharing the same baggage carousel, and as you can imagine that's a fuck load of luggage. And what typically happens when any machine is overloaded? They break!! Is that some sort of law of science? OVERLOADING=BREAKING=1 ANGRY CANADIAN=PADDED ROOM=STRAIGHT JACKET It was also at this point I burst into psychotic laughter for all the world to see. LIke, I actually keeled over and just started dying of laughter. I didn't care if people stared. There was no other physical reaction I could possibly have that wouldn't land me in the slammer so I chose laughter.
1 hour later after maintenance showed up to fix it, I walked out the doors of the airport...right into a 2 hour wait for a taxi. Obviously, my natural reaction was to drop my bags and do this...
Then began to cry...like sob. Publicly. I didn't give a fuck who saw. As I approached the back of the line which was basically in Albany, (if you know geography, that's fucking far upstate). My Oscar-worthy performance proved to work to my advantage as I was consoled by a couple from South Carolina and Philly. Probably some of the nicest people I've ever met in my life. Can you blame me for crying though? I was hungover, tired, I was dreaming of a decent meal and another shower, I was going to miss my friends, I was alone, and I had no idea what to expect next....
Then....out of no where, a little Mexican tapped me on my shoulder.....
Stay tuned next week, when I continue my adventure...
No comments:
Post a Comment