A Story I Forgot
– February 19th, 2004I left North Carolina Tuesday afternoon amidst a light snow storm. I usually fly American, but this time I was flying Delta because none of the American flights had the right combination of airplanes. At RDU American also has its own terminal (terminal C) dedicated to the entire airline, no sharesies. Terminal A is where all the other airlines cram together in a long line of confusion (I’ve stood in line for the wrong airline more than once). And terminal B appears to be one big baggage claim; I’ve never quite figured it out, though I do have a very vague memory of boarding a ValueJet plane destined for Florida a week before the fateful Everglades crash. So maybe baggage claim and mini-terminals for those ghetto boom-boom flights.
Anyways… the line leading up to the Delta terminal was one of the longest I’ve ever seen, and it consisted entirely of men in uniform (I’m assuming Army, I really don’t know these things). I freaked out since I can’t think straight in airports due to the drugs, and desperately tried to find Delta help. They pointed me to the self-check kiosks that were almost empty. Oops.
I passed out as soon as I got on the plane. I don’t remember takeoff (always a good thing), and didn’t really come to until the beverage people clanked down the aisle. I asked for an apple juice (I always drink apple juice unless I’m getting hammered) but they didn’t have any on the cart (?!?) and so I had to wait. When they brought my apple juice 5 minutes later, a stewardess leaned over and asked, “Miss Mignolo, would you like help with your connecting flight?” and since I can’t hear on planes and have so much xanax in me I can’t make much sense of anything, I say yes, figuring they wouldn’t ask me if the presumed answer was no. Maybe I was about to miss my connection and would to be zipped through the airport on those annoying ass airport-trolleys with the blinking lights that can never go very fast because of all the people, yet they are always trying as if a sliver of possiblity existed in which space would open up and they could just floor it.
We land and everyone begins the usual procedure of deboarding. The superhappy smiling steward and stewardess tell me that I need to wait. I wait until everyone is off, and then the steward helps me carry my luggage off the plane and directs me to a wheelchair. By this point I’m so confused I have absolutely no idea *what* is going on and mutely accept the ride. I couldn’t even get it together enough to ask what malady I was afflicted by. The man who wheeled me to my connecting flight took this intricate series of back hallways and elevators, and would jot things down on a sheet of paper occasionally. Everything was really empty, the superhappy helpful flight crew flashed into my head, and I wondered where I was really going to go. It’s fun to foment conspiracy theories when filled with a healthy dose of xanax – all the fun, none of the freakout. In a very disappointing conclusion, they wheeled me all the way to my connecting flight.
I now have a shortbus story and a wheelchair story. I’ll always wonder why they put me in a wheelchair… applejuice, in the context of Delta, will always be code for “act supernice and wheel them away quickly.” Maybe I was making it up, but I swear they got superhappy nice after I mentioned applejuice; like they were all in on a secret that I unknowingly triggered. Discuss.
mjm 
wolf woods 
seltix
applejuice? APPLEJUICE!!?! ha ha. what a tard!
no no, i mean… i don’t get it either, unless, in your haze you weren’t particularly coherent when asking for said beverage, and they just figured you were drunk or something.
continental went through the trouble of confirming that i wanted a vegetarian meal, then telling me it was the “meat” or nothing. unless i wanted more peanuts. twice. they never even offered me a chair or nothing.