Travelling Hopefully - WTFAISDH Part 2 Edition

An increasingly terse young man made repeated apologies for the delay of my replacement flight to Dallas and managed to sound slightly less apologetic each time.  It was a little difficult to hear him because he tended to make the apologies while the airport PA was announcing something else and another airport PA was translating a previous announcement into French.  As best I could work out the cause of the delay, or at least the latest cause of the latest delay was that another aircraft had elbowed aside our too gentle steed and taken its place at the loading gate.  There would be a brief pause while the planeherds wrestled it back to its stable.

Further delay was caused by the standard airline practice of gathering the feeble, the decrepit, the blind and the lame along with those quite clearly close to death and boarding them first thus causing a massive snarl up of other passengers.  I can’t help thinking that if they left these people until last there would always be a couple they wouldn’t have to worry about unless they had a refrigerated luggage space.

As we waited a woman next to me moaned that she had already been bumped off an earlier flight to Dallas.  I told her I felt her pain, then I told her to shut up, finally I told her to stop pestering me or I’d call the police.  Eventually all the human wreckage and coffin bait had been shovelled onto the plane and we were graciously permitted to occupy whatever space was left.

So I’ve finally done it; I’ve managed to leave Toronto.  My plane lumbered airward, destination Dallas.  Hopefully the helpful lady at the desk in Toronto has contacted someone equally helpful in Dallas who will provide me with food, accommodation and most importantly a boarding pass for the next leg of my journey.  If not I may have to take out Texan citizenship.

In anticipation of such an event I have used social media to contact the only friend I possess whose knowledge of Texas extends beyond the occasional passing reference in The Big Bang Theory.  She kindly sent me a list of things I could do in Dallas.  At least three of them were variants on the “escape from mortal danger” simulation.  Perhaps there should be a sign at the airport, “Welcome to Dallas, run for your life!”

The safety briefing was short to the point of being cursory and we were informed with a straight face that the seat cushions act as flotation devices.  If we go down over water we are apparently meant to disassemble the interior of the aircraft and then jump into the sea with a piece of furniture strapped to our back.  I wonder who will play me in the episode of Aircrash Investigations?  The phrase “death on impact” has never sounded so appealing.