12/27/06 Apple Juice at 50,000 feet

Every year, the Tonster and I switch out on which family to visit for Thanksgiving, and which to visit for Christmas. This year, Christmas went to his family, who happen to live in the Great White North, where it is usually cold and snowy and windy, and basically all those weather conditions that I hate. (Reason number 1 as to why we cannot EVER live in the Great White North. EVER). Because of this, we decided to fly up, instead of attempting to drive it.

I normally like flying. It has the distinct advantage of Sky Mall magazine (the best magazine with which to play "Guess what's most expensive" and "Guess what's the cheapest"), and it's usually pretty fast, and you get free apple juice, and you don't get carsick.

Well, the Sky Mall magazine didn't disappoint. I can't really say that it was all that fast, seeing how we sat in the Detroit airport for 7 hours (fog likes to follow us around from city to city, reeking havoc with airplane visibility), but when we did manage to get into the plane and off the ground, the flight attendant gave me a WHOLE CAN of apple juice as opposed to just pouring some into the little airplane cup. SWEET! (For some reason, I only drink apple juice on airplanes. I like it, but it's never something I think to buy for myself at home. It's just my dedicated airline beverage). Anyway, the flight was only something like 55 minutes, so roughly 30 seconds after the attendant gave me the can, they made the announcement that she was coming back through to pick up the trash in preparation for landing. Tony is hissing at me, "Here she comes! Chug it!" so I chugged an entire can of apple juice (because apple juice can't be wasted!).
Meanwhile, in anticipation of our arrival, the fog has raced ahead of us to settle in around the landing runway (sneaky fog!). Apparently, fog is also very bumpy (who knew?) because at about 30 miles out, we started bouncing all over the place, and doing crazy mid-air figure eights, and defensive barrel rolls (standard anti-fog maneuvers?), all of which made yours truly (with a tummy full of apple juice) very very queasy. I turned a shade of green that even Debbie Travis would be impressed with.

Rules for airsickness: Pick a focus point inside the plane. I chose the back of Mr. Male Pattern Baldness's head in the seat in front of me. Do not look out the window! Think about anything other than food, drink, spinning in circles, or being sick. (I got Tony to start talking about random things so that I could concentrate on what he was saying. This, for some reason, makes him draw a complete blank). Pray for a quick landing and short taxi. (The fates were against me on this one. After circling in the air forever (oh my inner ear!) we finally land...4 miles from the terminal! And you know how those runways are- they zigzag back and forth, back and forth, turning in circles, daring you to get sick all over the place).

Luckily, I am strong of mind, and had the sheer will needed to avoid puking all over the plane. I did have to sit there for a few minutes to wait for my head to stop spinning, but I considered keeping all my apple juice inside where it belonged to be a Herculean feat. Those other passengers are so lucky. They're grumbling about the delay and the fog and the baggage claim, but they have no idea what they almost got hit with. I consider not puking on them to be my Christmas present to the masses. Merry Christmas ya'll.