Ms. Hicks Goes to Washington

So I will be heading up to Washington in a couple of days on “official Fest business.” Time to climb my sorry ass onto a plane and brave the rough-n-tumble flight up to the Pacific Northwest and back. Anyone who knows me knows my feelings about flying. And heights. And small enclosed spaces (8th grade birthday party anyone? anyone? Bueller?).

You can only imagine how excited I am about this trip. No. Really. Hang on, lemme put on my excitement face….

There. Better? Thought so.

This time I’m flying with Alaska. I’ve never flown with them before. I don’t know much of anything about them except for the fact that when I was 8, I thought the smiling face on the tail of the plane was Michael Landon playing Pa Ingalls in “Little House on the Prairie.” Yeah, let’s all point and laugh at the blooming idiot.

I have not had the best of experiences with flying. I’m not necessarily talking about the actual flying itself. There has been only twice where I can tell you that while in the air, I honestly thought I was going to poo myself because of the turbulence. And once I had a pilot who thought he was fucking Evil Knievil and practically landed the damn thing on I-5.

Mostly my issues are with my fellow passengers. And/or experiences with the airports themselves. I think the worst passenger story I could even possibly tell you is about the woman with the smelly butt who sat in front of me all the way from Dallas/Ft. Worth to Sacramento…whilst a crazy hippie woman with her insanely neurotic cat in a duffel bag sat next to me, carrying on about her 6 week trip to St. Thomas that she took after quitting her job and leaving her husband on a whim. Huh?

Then there was the time we were coming back from my birthday trip to Disneyland and we got stuck in LAX for four extra hours due to extreme flight delay. Four hours! They ended up finding us a spare plane and crew so we could get home before the turn of the next century. All I can say is, LAX is a strange and not-so-wonderful place. I think people go there just to be weird in public. Mind you, this was back before 9-11, so anyone with a pulse could sit in the terminals…and honestly, I think even the pulse was optional.

So anyway. It should be interesting what I have to report back to you once I get home. Lord knows something interesting will end up happening. Unless of course that something ends up being my flight going down in a ball of flames. Then you won’t hear back from me at all. Sorry.