Turbulence

It started off on a good note. I plopped my rolling duffel onto the weight scale at the Continental counter and watched as it read “50.0” pounds exactly. I applauded my packing skills but knew my large rolling bag was doomed...“65.3” pounds worth of doomed, in fact. The guy at the counter said I could pay a fifty dollar fee and check the overstuffed bag or remove fifteen pounds of my belongings, the things that had made all the previous packing cuts into the final suitcase round. Because I’m cheap, I chose the latter; because the Continental employee was impatient, he told me to just leave it as is. (Yay--crisis averted!) That was victory #1 that I took to be a good omen for my long journey back to Germany.

The first leg of the itinerary from Alex to Houston was pleasant enough; I was seated next to a very nice older man who had some interesting stories, and I had adequate time during my layover to find my gate and have some pizza before heading off again. Things were running as smoothly as possible.

I boarded the gigantic plane that would take me from Houston to London in a timely fashion, removed my magazines, book and neck pillow from my bag and buckled myself into my assigned window seat. I read while the other passengers reached their spots, growing ever excited that no one had even paused at my row so far. As the attendants were walking around closing all the overhead compartments, I allowed myself to finally get excited! A row--three seats--ALL to myself for the entire 9 hour trip! This was the ultimate sign that lady luck was smiling on my travels...I felt that I could relax and just revel in all this good fortune. Until the moment I heard the captain announce that the doors were closed, there was a little part of my brain that was telling me things were going a bit...too well. My stomach was about to prove me right.

After eating my salt & vinegar pringles and a few twizzlers, I watched Grey Gardens again (even though I watched it on the flight out to Louisiana and watched the original documentary at my parents’ the night before). I started to feel a little queasy, but chalked it up to the chicken and rice meal I nibbled on because was too rude to just turn down completely, as well as the fact that this was the choppiest flight I’d encountered in a plane of this size. I didn’t become panicky until all the sudden my spit glands started churning into overdrive and my stomach began doing somersaults. I hastily made my way a few rows back to turn the corner to the lavatory just in time to yank its door shut and empty the entire contents of my stomach into the toilet. I wretched, popped a few blood vessels in my eyes and emerged shaking and dizzy. Lovely. I grabbed a cup of ice water the Flight Attendant had left on a nearby tray and groped my way back to 42A.

Once buckled up, I started to think that karma had dealt me my retribution for giving me enough cabin space to lie down. The ying to my overweight luggage yang. Things could get back to normal now that justice had been served. I decided that reading anything was out of the question. The pressure behind my eyes was mounting and my head started to feel as though it would split. Then, in the middle of a Nia Vardalos movie ominously titled My Life in Ruins, my saliva glands kicked in again--a sure sign that something bad was about to happen. When I couldn’t locate an airsick bag in front of me, I put my boots on and scurried to the toilet bay where I would find a seedy looking character informing me that the bathroom was occupied. I nervously asked for a sick bag, but by the time the slow-moving attendant was even close to finding one, my stomach recoiled, shooting its contents toward my mouth even though it was covered forcefully by my clasped hands. When it got to be too much, I had no choice but to double over. My hands involuntarily lost their grip...and I, my lunch. The entire bay area was decorated with my vomit (which, thankfully, was only the water from after the last incident), but still! I helplessly looked around to see the shocked faces of the attendants in the back and began to cry. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a timid hand with a paper baggie (ironically resembling a lunch bag) move toward me in offering. No sooner did the lavatory occupant exit did I push my way into that closet to finish what I’d started. The water I splashed on my face did nothing to quell the headache or complete mortification that I was feeling. I wished I could just flush myself out of the plane entirely, but then I realized that these things happen. Surely I wasn’t the first to vomit publicly in an enclosed area while choppily hurdling through time and space, and I dare say I would not be the last.

It only happened one more time--once the plane had landed and no one was allowed to get out of his/her seat, but I did have the good sense to locate another baggie ahead of time. I tried getting the attention of an attendant (even though people were shuffling at that point to get their bags and get far away from me), but by then I was so embarrassed and exhausted, I just folded down the lip and tucked it away in the seat behind me. I felt that karma should let that one slide because of the quality of the in-flight “meal”.

My short flight from London to Hamburg was spent with me coming in and out of consciousness with my head practically fused to the window and my hands clutching a sick bag (just in case). Next time--no matter what--I’ll just pay the overweight baggage fee, and should I find myself in a row to myself, I will be getting off that plane.