If you have ever gone on a relatively short distance flight you are probably familiar with the comforts of a bombardier Q400.
As you can see pretty small, some might even say tiny! Some of you may be thinking that is 500 times bigger than the plane you had to take from Anchorage to Valdez or wherever you have had to take a little Cessna, but I believe these planes might have even less room for your person! You crawl in the door on your hands and knees, or at best look like one of the ape/men on those ridiculous evolutionary timelines, with your lip stuck out and your knuckles dragging the ground. You think to yourself, “oh no! I’m on the wrong plane. I’m not taking a nonstop flight to Munchkin land.” Possibly in a panic you may turn around to make your escape, but the other giants have filled the plane and there is no way out. In a desperate attempt to keep your cool you make your way to your seat as quickly as you can.
I felt absolutely ridiculous hunched over like a cavewoman with my neck craned around making me look even more odd. I found my seat without any difficulty other than a crick in my neck. Since I was flying S-O-L-O I did not have the joy of sharing the impossibly small area that is your seat with someone that I knew. No, instead I got some jackwagon who was about as friendly as a rabid Cascadian dog. (If you are wondering what that is, it is a wild dog that lives in Cascade, Idaho. They were originally used as guard dogs for people living there, but made the owners so nervous that they let them run free. Unfortunately these wild dogs formed a pack and made new wild dogs that roam the streets trying to lure you in close enough to bite a chunk of flesh from your person.) Anyway you get the picture; this guy was not very nice. Now maybe he was having a bad day, maybe he was really tired, maybe he was also less than enthused about the small space we would be stuck in for the next hour and a half, or maybe he was just rude. Who knows? We didn’t exchange much conversation. What little we had went like this.
Me trying to be as sweet as possible: Hi. How are you today?
Mr. Odious: uarah (he mostly spoke in grunts). Fine.
Me: I’m glad to hear it.
Mr. Odious: uarah… yeah.
I figured that those few grunts meant either 1) he had little knowledge of the English language or 2) he really had no intention of chatting it up on our flight. No worries, I had a book and my iPod more than enough entertainment for the next few hours.
Our tiny little plane began its very long path down the runway; though I am pretty sure for a while we were just riding around in circles. The ascent in most planes is a little on the rougher side of life, but to get up to those speeds and off the ground it seems reasonable. Unfortunately for my flight the take off was one of the smoothest parts of the flight. We jostled around uncontrollably for about thirty minutes until they “steadied” the plane long enough to turn the seatbelt light off.
You would have thought that little light was a starting gun at the races. 15 of the 60 or so people that fit on the plane shot out of their seats like the plane was on fire. I had my headphones on at the time and thought I had missed an important announcement. Something like “attention, this is your pilot speaking, the engines have simultaneously exploded, the wings snapped off, we are leaking fuel, and the windshield wipers have quit working. We are advising everyone to run down the aisle and jump out of any available exists. You will most likely die, but it is better than exploding in a ball of flaming plane. As always thank you for flying Horizon Air.” I ripped my headphones out in a panic when I saw the masses leap from their seats to find out what I had missed. Then one of the flight attendants said “we will be bringing the drink cart and complimentary snacks now. The drinks are…” I was glad we were not exiting the plane midflight, but I was still concerned about the people who seemed to be confused about our arrival time. Then I realized that this mob had formed to use the one and only lavatory on our plane.
I have never been inside an airplane bathroom before, but judging by the way the people entered and exited I can only imagine that it is very small. The people were already hunched over in the aisle with their hair grazing the ceiling. But to get into the bathroom was apparently a contortionist act. People were undoing their pants before they backed into the “bathroom”. When they came out they looked like a human pretzel and had to unfold before they could make it back to their seats. Despite seeing this act, waiting behind ten or so people, and the fact that the flight only lasted about 45 minutes more I was astonished that people couldn’t figure out a way to hold it. But for the entire time the seatbelt light was off there were a line of people going to the bathroom, I swear some of them must have gone in there more than once.
I decided to ignore the maniacs at the front of the plane and go back to my movie, Freaky Friday the original version. The attendants worked their way from the front of the aisle back towards my seat. When they got there I decided to pass on any liquids, just in case that Dixie cup of liquid lead to me using the bathroom on the plane. However, Mr. Odious decided that he would have some refreshing beer, which he hot-breathed in my direction the remainder of the flight, oh the joys of small confinement with no means of escape. About one minute after the drinks had been distributed the smooth part of the flight was over.
We shook around the plane and the seatbelt light was turned back on. The rest of the flight was like some sort of roller coaster ride. We would climb up bumping about on the way up only to drop suddenly and leave the pit of your stomach feeling all weird. A man up the aisle from me was apparently trying to steady the plane by force, and when he found he couldn’t he decided to take it out on his seat, which he almost completely removed from the floor. We continued this cycle for the next 40 minutes or so until we reached Boise. When we landed I thought my worries were over, but I was wrong. The same starter gun is used to release the people from the plane when you land. Everyone flings themselves into the aisle and pushes toward the unopened door making for a nightmarish setting for any partial claustrophobic. Regardless of the mob scene in the isle the man next to me decided that we would join the madness, which he symbolized by standing up. I wonder what he would have done if I had just sat there, keeping him from the aisle. But instead I got up, grabbed my purse and stood there waiting to get off the plane. It was obvious that there was not enough room to even add another person much less any baggage, but that didn’t stop him. Oh no! He leapt into the aisle and began opening the overhead compartment, which I was standing directly under. I thought about giving him a good jab to his unprotected ribs, but decided that would not get me off this plane any faster. I finally made it off the plane and realized how nice it is to stand straight. And that was my Amazing Adventure on a flight to Idaho.
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