Plane Petting Zoo
Dear Rudy,
On a recent Savvy Traveler program, you had listeners talking about
their worst travel experience. I thought you may like to hear this
one.
It was a cold, gray Washington, D.C. Monday morning in winter. My
boss asked me to fly to Boston to do some training for a few days. I
am not a morning person, so the trip to Dulles Airport from downtown
was a chore. Add bad weather to the equation, and this was shaping up
to be a bad trip before I even left the city.
After midnight, a storm had blown through the area that dumped about
two inches of snow on the ground before turning into rain. The
resulting slush on the road was like driving through sand and slowed
my trip to the airport considerably. I got to the airport in a
pre-coffee, grumpy mood. Rushing to the gate with my e-ticket, with
only 10 minutes to spare, I found the Starbucks stand and sucked down
a small coffee to make me feel more human. Then I was cattle-walked
onto a freezing plane. The blowers were not on yet, and we sat
shivering at the gate for over a half hour before the pilot gave us
an explanation: The blowers couldn't be used during de-icing because
they might cause the smelly de-icing vapor to waft onto the plane.
Cold, needing another coffee, and cramped in my seat, I was
confronted with a snoring passenger directly behind me. But "snoring"
is a gentle term for the racket emanating from this man. Let's just
say the reverberation caused the baggage handler outside the plane to
look for some noise he thought was coming from the engine.
Bad enough? Not yet. Next thing I know, I felt the man's foot
touching the back of my leg. That was it! I had had it! Rip Van
Winkle needed to be woken up!
Just as I turned in my seat to shake my neighbor awake, I felt a
wiggling between my ankles. Much to my surprise, a huge golden
retriever head appeared. He looked up at me as if to say, "Hi! I'm a
seeing-eye dog and I need a little more room for this big ol' head.
Mind if I use your foot as a pillow?"
Well, let me tell you, that was the most amazing mood transformation
I've ever had in my life. I went from a grumpy traveler to an excited
kid in the petting zoo in two seconds. My newest friend and I got
along famously -- especially when the cold drinks came around. I had
my morning OJ, and my under-the-seat buddy had the ice cubes.
This flight will always remain my best travel experience * at least
on-the-job travel experience.
Truly yours,
John
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