Grace, the Flight Attendant

"Good morning, my name is Grace and I will be your flight attendant today!", she said as the door slammed on the Delta flight to Memphis. The curious thing about this was Grace had to be 75 years of if she was a day and reminded me of the sweet little old lady that was the owner of the cartoon character, Tweety Bird that was in constant peril of Sylvester the Cat. In my eight years as a flying road warrior, I've seen some older ones but she was the oldest. In my opinion, it's quite fitting that we would have Grace as our attendant in as much as how the equipment seemed to show a lot of age and wear.

Watching and mulling over the significance of the elderly lady as a flight attendant, I noticed something lying in the seat next to me. It was a part of the overhead reading lamp fixture that had fallen off the console above my head. I decided to reinstall it myself rather than reporting it to Grace. Given their record of maintenance problems, I didn't want to risk delaying the flight.

In advance of serving refreshments, Grace announced with much detail that we would be limited on beverages because of some malfunction involving the ice machine and that somehow this had caused  an hour delay the evening before because the mechanics were trying to fix it but failed and they  were  having to order parts and on and on and on.....Whew!  She not only apologized for that but nearly fell on the sword explaining that there was a shortage of beverages as well. "I have a few Cokes, four Diet Cokes and three Sprites." What was next? Would she take the blame for the Haitian earthquake too?

Now, I'm beginning to think that if Delta is flying granny around the USA on planes that have parts falling off, refrigerators that don't work and potties that are not available, just how bad is the general condition of this plane? In the past five weeks, Delta has either delayed or completely canceled flights for me on at least five occasions for equipment maintenance problems. How old and how worn are thousands of planes flying the friendly skies? Honestly, this alarms me very much.

Curmudgeon

Main Entry: cur·mud·geon
(click the speaker button)
Function: noun
Pronunciation: (")k&r-'m&-j&n
: a crusty, ill-tempered, and usually old man
- cur·mud·geon·li·ness /-le-n&s/ noun
- cur·mud·geon·ly /-le/ adjective

I'm blaming it on the airline industry this week. Yep, I'm becoming a curmudgeon of sorts. Now there are those of which I have a familiar relationship would beg to contest the word "becoming" but let's not be nit-picky.

In the middle of last week I found it necessary to leave Huntsville, Alabammer and head for the sunny beaches of Saint Augustine, Florida. After scrambling out of bed very early Wednesday morning, I did my last minute packing, loaded up the bags and headed out just a short distance to the airport. Realizing I needed to turn the rental car in with a full tank, I stopped off at an all night gas station where the pumps refused pump more than 15 cents worth in a minute. Realizing it would be noon before it would fill, I blasted off in search for another. After a quick fill up at the Chevron station I hit the road in a light rain and after missing my turn I realized my timing might be in jeopardy. After a 5 minute detour I got back to the right road and made it into the rental car lane, turned the car in and dragged my two bags to the check-in counter.

The man at the counter eased my fears about being late by good naturedly telling me that the 7 AM flight now would be the 9:15 AM flight and that since my Delta Connection in Jacksonville would be very long gone by the time I got there, I would have the opportunity of enjoying the ambiance of Atlanta's accommodations complete with airline employees who would be coming to work that day with a very nasty attitude that would surpass the one I was quickly gaining. Hmmmph!

Mr. Friendly at the counter had already used the word "weather" a lot and so other people in the airport were calling loudly on the cell phones and using "weather" in their conversations as well. It seems the crew was late arriving the night before and they would need rack time to fulfill layover requirements. With expectations already hardening in my head, I entertained myself on the internet by informing several people (who could probably have cared less) that I would not be arriving in Jacksonville at 11:30 AM but would be arriving at 1:50 PM instead....due to "weather". Oh well, not so bad, I kept telling myself. I could be in St Augustine by 3:30. Oh, I had forgotten I was flying on Delta. My bad.

The 9:15 flight became the 9:30 flight and as we sat in the cabin waiting to move, then the WWA-Waitress With Attitude (flight attendant) informed us that it was federal holy law that we must abide by airline employee's instructions and that we should not disable the smoke detector in the privy. She also used the word "weather" several times. Many were not impressed.

Eventually arriving in ATL, I grabbed some lunch at a Chinese place run by a bunch of Russians, sat on a stool facing a wall and listened to lots of folk talk loudly on their phones about the "weather". "Weather" had caught on pretty well and "weather" was now the blame of everything small and great from a bad hair day to splinters in chop-sticks.

The waiting area for my flight was overcrowded because of the "weather" and Delta was almost giddy for having "weather' to blame for all their maladies. The scapegoat for being late every other delay is up for speculation. I sat for quite a while afraid to give up the seat I had waited several minutes for but eventually got up when they announced new departure times twice. I went to the shops and looked at overpriced things I would never really buy and took my chances in the aisles nearly being run over by those carts hustling pre-teens and old(er) people with walkers to different gates.

Eventually Jacksonville became a reality but by then, due to "weather", I now found myself in traffic headed for St Augustine that would rival any day on the I-10 in Baton Rouge. At 6 PM, I checked myself into the hotel, ate at the IHOP and awaited more adventures in travel.