I’ve already described my harrowing mad dash to the airport but there were a couple of other random travel notes I just had to throw out there. First of all, I’ve traveled on some smallish planes this year but Tuesday was the first time I’ve ever heard a stewardess utter these very comforting words “Someone from the first two rows needs to move to the back of the plane to balance out the weight.” Huh. So, this aircraft is so sensitive that we need to move a couple of hundred pounds 30 feet. Well, that makes me feel *very* secure. I know this is pretty standard but still, gives a guy pause…
As you no doubt know by now, it was snowing on Tuesday which means deicing. Frankly, I wasn’t that concerned - it wasn’t that snowy (though it was plenty cold) but still, flying in less than ideal conditions makes you think. Anyway, the first officer gave us the spiel about how we’d be taxiing to the deicing station where we’d stop and then we’d be off. After getting a bath in propylene glycol, we were ready to roll…well, not quite. At one point my seat mate leaned over and quipped “I didn’t realize we were driving to St. Louis.” I’m sure it wasn’t that far but it really did seem like we’d be “driving” for quite some time and I was starting to wonder what the time limit was on that deicing fluid…
Speaking of which, the spare pilot (seriously, what *is* their role? Don’t get me wrong…redundancy in pilots is a good thing…) makes a comment along the lines of “we are really hoping to get in the air shortly or else we’ll have to return to be deiced.” Huh. Not that I really wanted to return to the terminal area but I couldn’t help but wonder - should we really be taking off with the deicing fluid at the end of it’s effective life span? Obviously, it wasn’t a problem but still…
One last little travel note - why is it, when you have *plenty* of time to get to your gate, it’s about 50 feet from the security checkpoint but when you’re rushed, it’s on the other end of the world? Leaving St. Louis, I alloted ample time (hey, I learned my lesson…) and while I didn’t expect any issues getting through security, of course my gate was literally down the hall from where I went through the gauntlet that protects the world from dangerous shampoo. Oh well, who ever said this speaking gig wasn’t glamorous huh?
