Kicked On A Plane

Here’s a fun fact: something you may not know about me is that I’m a Caucasian male.

Not to minimize the troubles I’ve had in this world–I’ve had my share of true sorrow, heartache, and hardship–but sometimes I have to take a step back and acknowledge how being a white dude has affected my life story.

And the point of this exercise is not to come to the conclusion “thank the Lordy Jesus that I was born with a lilly-white tally-whacker¹A regional American colloquialism for the male genitalia. in 20th Century U.S. of A!”

Rather, my hope is that my Tales from the Light Side will serve as a sharp and satirically self-deprecating contrast to the real issues that affect the many many people who don’t share the same demographics as I do.

Here’s to dreaming of world where all our kids can be plagued by asinine, non-existential dilemmas…

A few years ago, I flew out to Kansas to pack up my Beloved Mother into the largest UHaul available, and move her back to the small North Carolina hamlet I call home.

I was flying on Good Friday, so it was no surprise that the airports were hustling and a bustling. I had an early afternoon layover in Atlanta, where all that hustle and bustle caught up with Delta Airlines, as my flight to Wichita was overbooked.

Well, what do airlines do when the have too many passengers and not enough seats? They ask for volunteers to take a later flight, occasionally offering airline vouchers as compensation.

Now, I had heard about such things from one of my older brothers, who, being a single basketball coach, travelled often. Critically for him, he often had the flexibility in his schedule to take a later flight–and the $200-$700 in future plane tickets in the process.

I was always so jealous–y’all know how much I love being clever, and getting hundreds of dollars in travel for a few hours of your time always seemed like shrewd economics to me.

Anyways, after multiple calls for volunteers, the voucher reward had gone up to $600. For some reason, as I often have in life, I had initially automatically ruled out the possibility of me being one of the lucky ones to cash in on the opportunity. But once I heard $600, I started to seriously–and nervously–rethink my position on the matter.

I texted my mom real quick and told her about the situation, and asked whether it made a difference if I showed up at 7 pm or 11 pm. She told me to go for it…now I just had to work up the courage to actually take action!

I guess a little context might be useful here, and that is that unless I’m in a situation that I’m fairly comfortable in, I tend to be a shy, timid, uncertain and indecisive chap. So it actually would be quite the big deal if I had the cajones to put myself out there and volunteer for the later flight.

After about 5 minutes of self-pep-talking (and hoping/dreading that they would find all the volunteers they needed in the meantime), I finally worked up the nerve to stroll up to the check-in station²I’m sure that’s not quite the right term, but can’t seem to come up with the proper one in the moment. and casually ask if they needed any more volunteers.

I say “casually,” but I’m actually lying through my teeth. I’m pretty sure my voice cracked into a high-pitched screech mid-sentence, as if my testicles were just now dropping, no doubt confusing the airline clerk³Again, I’m pretty sure this isn’t the right term. in the process.

To my horror/relief, she said that yes, actually, they needed one more volunteer. So I replied with something suave and relaxed, implying that I do this thing all the time: “Uh, I, er, volunteer then. I want to be that last person. Please?”

She graciously smiled and took my info, thanking me in the process.

And then we awkwardly stood there, since clearly I didn’t know what was supposed to happen next.

Again, she was more than kind enough to tell me that I needed to hang out by the gate until boarding time, in case they had room for me on the flight after all.

So, I just chilled right by the gate first waiting for our boarding time to begin, then patiently waiting as all those non-$600-airline-voucher-having suckers boarded the plane.

As the line was slowing to a trickle, I heard the flight attendant call my name, saying that I was cleared to board.

Dazed and confused, I wandered on to the plane, slowly realizing what was happening.

At the same time I was realizing how much I did not want to be on that plane. I had finally worked up the courage to earn a coveted airline voucher, and now it was being viciously ripped from my hands. They might as well have been ripping my heart out while they were at it. Jerks.

I think this accurately describes my innermost feelings in that moment:

I was surprisingly emotional about the situation. As found my way to my seat, I actually had to fight back the tears.

Of course, it probably didn’t help that I had already bragged to the Boss Lady about scoring a $600 voucher, and now I would have to come home to her empty-handed. So not only had I disappointed myself, but I would be letting her down as well.

I was also surprisingly angry with myself, feeling like I could have at least put up a fight had I not been such a pushover panty-waste.

So I just sat there in my seat waiting for take-off, a whole hurricane of emotions and thoughts on the inside.

But as I did, I noticed that a couple of the flight attendants were confusedly counting seats in my area.

And in that moment, timid ol’ me said “Screw⁴This was supposed to say “fuck” here, but my Censorship plugin didn’t catch it. So here we are, using “screw” instead. Oh well. this. I’m the master of my own destiny, and if I have to manufacture a way off this plane, I will!”

Well, it wasn’t that dramatic in reality. But I did indeed take charge of my life in the moment, refusing be the victim of an on-time arrival at my destination.

I wasn’t going to let nobody kick me on to that ----- plane.

I persistently tried to get one of the attendant’s attention until they finally came my way.

“Excuse me, but were you expecting to find an empty seat back here? Because I’m pretty sure I’m sitting in a seat that rightfully belongs to someone else…”

After checking with the other confused attendant, it turned out that indeed, they had prematurely put me on the plane, and was extremely grateful that I was giving up my seat (again).

Once I got the official go-ahead to deboard the plane, I grabbed my carryon and strolled off that plane, ever so high on testosterone, adrenaline, and life. I was brimming with the confidence, like I had three tally-whackers…

And in an even more Caucasian turn of events, shortly thereafter I found out that for whatever reason the voucher would be for $800 instead of $600. ----- awesome.

Given that I now had 3+ hours on my hands to kill, I found my way to one of the nicer restaurants in the Atlanta airport and treated myself to a $70 meal. After all, I was still over $700 richer than when I woke up that morning. Plus, you gotta celebrate life’s little victories, ya know?

Several months later at the beginning of September, me and the family flew out to California for a cousin’s wedding. Thanks to my sweet, sweet $800 voucher, it only cost us ~$500 for the 3 of us to fly non-stop to and from LAX.

While there, one of our freer days happened to align with the first day of back-to-school for the students in Southern California.

Seeing a prime opportunity, I promptly used the funds that I didn’t have to spend on plane tickets, and dragged my family to local, notoriously over-crowded amusement park…on one of the least busiest days of the year.

Yes, my friends, in perhaps the most white ending possible for a story like this…

I went to ----- Disneyland.

Content created on: 22 January 2020 (Wednesday)

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