I love to fly and it shows!

Hi guys, hope your holidays are going well. To be honest, mine started off a bit rocky. My wife had a death in the family and we flew to Texas last week for the funeral. Everything went well and Nancy is doing fine.

We flew home last night. It's not the biggest secret that I'm not a huge fan of flying. It freaks me out pretty bad. I've gotten better over time, but some flights still press my freak out button from time to time.

Last night was the worst flight I've ever been on, but I handled it pretty well. I know a lot of people have had terrible flights, and undoubtedly the second I post this a 100 people will tell me their "horrible flight" stories. Let me just say upfront, I don't want to hear them. I already hate flying and I don't need to hear "horrible flight" stories to add fuel to my anxieties, thank you. Let me tell you my story and then lets all pretend that it's THE worst story and just agree to move on with our lives. If you give me this one I'll let you tell me all your "horrible dentist" stories whenever I talk about having my wisdom teeth pulled.

Our flight was scheduled to depart at 3:35pm. We checked online at around 1pm and it was already delayed an hour, so our new departure time was 4:35pm. It was cold and rainy outside so we figured it was just the weather. We looked at ALL the departure times out of DFW and NONE of the other flights were delayed. Just the ones into New York. LaGuardia Airport sucks the biggest balls of all time. I'm talking bigger than that dude in Africa with elephantiasis of the balls. You've seen that video right, where he uses his balls as a bean bag chair, but I digress....

We get to the airport and check in around 3pm. Everything seems fine. We actually board the plane at 4pm and they close the doors around 4:40pm. Then, once they have us all captive, they tell us we will be on the tar mack... is it mat or mack? Anyway, we'll be waiting to take off for at least 45 minutes.

We're in the back of the plane and people are still sitting down. This crazy dude comes in wearing a tan fishing vest. Those vests that have 100 pockets. He stops in the isle and tries to put his bag in the over head compartment. He has trouble because, as I stated before, he's fucking crazy. He's holding up the last 4 people that have to sit down and he's taking his crazy time. That's when this evil flight attendant starts yelling at him to sit down immediately so we can pull out of the gate. As it turns out, Hitler had a daughter and she became a flight attendant. She's about 43 years old, blond, and she wears a festive Christmas embroidered vest. I think the vest was camouflage so you would think she was nice, right before she stabbed you in the face with her switchblade.

This crazy guy's a little slow and doesn't really understand what's going on so he just sort of doesn't listen to her, which makes her even crankier. She yells and yells and he crazies and crazies. He takes of his tan vest, under that is a jacket, he takes of his jacket, and under that is a regular black vest. This dude loves him some vests! Eventually he sits down and we pull out of the gate around 4:50pm.

At 4:55pm there's a jolt and weird noise. The plane just sits there for a few minutes. The pilot comes on the speaker and says the auxiliary motor won't start, and thats how they start the two actual motors. He then says we have to pull back into the gate and have the maintenance crew come out and start the two engines manually. This make Nick freak out a teensy weensy bit in his stomach.

We pull back into the gate and 35 minutes later the engines have been successfully started. We pull out of the gate, again, at around 5:45. I'm still a little uneasy with the whole engines not starting thing. As we taxi out the plastic cover on the outside of the tv monitor hanging from the middle of the aisle is rattling like a some of a bitch. It needs to have a couple screws tightened. This loose monitor casing isn't helping to relax me. Apparently everything was fine though, because at 6:10pm we took off.

The weather was pretty icky outside, however the take off was fine. About 10 minutes into the flight there's a huge jolt of turbulence that causes gasps, but everything is normal for a while afterward.

We get into the air, then what will go down in history as the busiest airplane bathroom EVER opens it's doors for operations. About 20 minutes into the flight a nonstop line starts to form at the back of the plane for the restrooms. I shit you negative when I say there were at least three people in line for the restroom for the ENTIRE flight.

Nancy finally had to go so she got in line. As I waited for her to come back there is an even bigger jolt that drops us a bout 50 to 100 feet. I learned about 2 minutes later that, unfortunately, my poor little wife was on the can when it happened. I almost shit my pants when it happened, and I'm sure if I had been on the toilet at the time, all bets would have been off. I would've dropped a deuce no questions asked.

She was a little shaken up, but fine. It took them about ten minutes to finally get the drink cart going because the line to the bathroom was in the way. They finally had to just ask all the people waiting in line to come all the way to the back and stand in the flight attendant lair while they went by. For some reason it literally took the drink cart 50 minutes to make it all the way from the front of the plane to us. By the time it got there they were out of pretty much everything. We hadn't eaten dinner and it was around 8pm at this point. We bought chips and vodka tonics to calm our nerves.

The turbulence was horrendous the entire flight, and to make matters worse, the in flight movie was "How the Grinch Stoled Christmas"

We finally make it to the New York area, to my relief. It was a short lived victory however, after the captain informs us that we will be in a holding pattern over New York for at least 45 more minutes. My tummy was sad.

At 9:30 the captain tells us we have been cleared for landing 15 minutes early, only to come back on and tell us that two other planes had to go in front of us for medical emergencies. Meanwhile, this extra 45 minutes meant 45 more minutes of turbulence. We get cleared to land and I swear to God the plane is tilted 35 degrees to the right up until about 30 seconds before touch down.

The landing was met with applause. Of course being in the back meant an extra long wait to get off the plane. Meanwhile the crazy guy is trying to get his bag that is literally three people ahead of him as we wait to leave. He manages to get it without banging anyone in the head.

A flight that was supposed to get us home at 8pm, got us in around 10:30. Fun.

Needless to say we are flying back to Texas for Christmas in 11 days. Hooray! I hope they show "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" again.