The Sasquatch Journal

A Series of Unfortunate Airplane Events I blame my lost opportunity with a potential Airplane Girlfriend for causing me to be stranded in El Paso, Texas for almost an entire night. Let me explain… I standing in the “B” line at the Southwest terminal waiting to fly back to Los Angeles from St. Louis with a connecting flight in Albequerque, New Mexico, when I noticed a dark haired attractive indie type girl standing directly behind me in line. “Is this the B line?” she asked. That started a friendly exchange about the plight of New Mexico, about the quirks of flying, etc.

“This girl is going to be my Airplane Girlfriend,” I thought with a smile.

If you recall in “Fight Club,” Tyler Durden talks about “single-serving friends” you are given on flights – the polite, sometimes interesting relationships you have with the people sitting next to you for three hours at 20,000 feet.

Airplane Girlfriends are just a…well, a more intimate form of single-serving friends. On a scale, there is more commitment and time spent than say a Grocery Store Line Girlfriend, but less than Day-Long Amusement Park Girlfriends than 14-year-olds dream about when they go to Six Flags and ditch Mom and Dad.

But I digress. As we board the plane, Indie girl follows me to the back of the plane as I scan for a section with two seats available. I do, and she follows me to the 8^th or so row from the back. But I struggled to find a place for my oversized carry-on duffle bag, and shuffled around to several compartments until I found a suitable one. In the process, Indie Girl loses patience and decides to sit down in the open seat directly in front of me.

With a sigh, I watch a giant tattooed Hispanic man sit down next to me instead.

Indie Girl went on to watch some kind of Victorian British costume drama on her laptop, I just tried to go asleep.

Which I was finally able to succeed in by the last hour of the flight. Unfortunately, the loss of my Airplane Girlfriend would be the least of my troubles.

Apparently while I was asleep, the pilot announced that there was some sort of foreboding storm over the Albequerque area, and the plane would not be able to land at the airport. Instead our plane headed to nearby El Paso, Texas to refuel and wait out the storm and then head back. But I didn’t know this as Mr. Hispanic man nudged me so that I would get out of his way so he could get out of the plane. I saw a few people walk out with their luggage and assumed that we were in New Mexico and most people were staying because the flight was supposed to end up in San Diego.

My mistake was not realized until AFTER the plane left the gate. So, here I was, stuck in the wonderful land of the El Paso airport with few options left. My life was left in the hands of kindly Southwest Airlines employees. At first, I thought this would turn out like the scene in “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” where Steve Martin gets so fed up with the unhelpful, but polite and unfailingly smiley airline employee that he goes off on a huge F-bomb laden rant…but after going up the Southwest food chain a bit, so to speak, they were actually pretty reasonable about it once I told my story.

If John Candy could of been somehow involved, my story would be 100 times better.

They were finally able to hook me up with a flight to Los Angeles, but there was a downside. It wasn’t until 5 a.m. If only I could find a Waiting Way Too Long for A Flight Girlfriend, but it wasn’t to be. I kept switching between reading a book and taking catnaps and making up detailed imaginary lives of the people I would see walking around the airport.

The flight home was uneventful, but unfortunately, since I had to work at 8:30 a.m., I ended up going straight there from my flight. Bleary-eyed, I stumbled into work…only to find out that I was going to end up in New York for maybe an entire MONTH. But that’s a different tale for a different time.