Thoughts at 30,000 feet

Posted on November 10, 2003 by Gene

It seems to me that there is some kind of strange, pervasive conspiracy at work in the airports of this country — inevitably, if my gate is, say, C3, the gates are numbered such that the low numbers are farthest away from where I came in. If my gate is A30, I can be sure that the first gate I encounter will be A1.
I have a sinking suspicion that the airports sneakily change all the gates between my travels. I’m certain that the next time I travel from gate C30 at Dulles, they will have renumbered all the gates so that the first one will now be C1.

This flight is blissfully empty. I’m the farthest-aft passenger, and there are still 5 or 6 rows behind me. I am so very much more comfortable than I expected to be — usually a plane flight makes me feel rather like some horribly mistreated livestock. Instead, I have my own whole section of the plane to myself. It seems even more empty because this is a 747 – there are 10 seats in a row. I’ve never flown on one of these before, and I’m vaguely disappointed because there is no bar, no comfy chairs or sofas upon which a slightly tipsy Brenda Vaccaro is draped. Then again, I don’t expect that this plane will end up on the ocean floor with Joe Petroni out there chomping on a cigar formulating a rescue. But this plane, more than any other, is the romantic ideal from Hollywood of what flying should be. I long to make my way forward to explore what’s up that stairway — I am absolutely certain that a guitar-toting nun is up there, singing to a little girl on her way for a life-saving operation, stretched out across a row of seats with an IV in her arm, while Gloria Swanson enjoys a martini.