I had to fly to Sydney for work this week and because of the early morning start time, I had to fly the night before to be sure I could make it in time. Being a public Holiday, I booked the last flight that I possibly could to maximise the time at home with the family.
We wolfed down a quick Chinese meal together and then Caroline and the kids dropped me off at the airport. As I ambled in to the airport the first thing that I noticed was that my flight had been delayed by about an hour. Yay. Oh well, it’s times like that that the Qantas club comes into its own.
I walked over to the check-in machine, certainly not worried about time anymore, and input my details. It didn’t recognise me and spat out some advice about going to the counter. That didn’t overly worry me as it wasn’t the first time something had been messed up on a company booking.
When I spoke to the bloke at the counter though, it was a little different from previous times. The flight was rated for 180 people, but due to the weather that was being experienced in Sydney it had been down-graded to 160 and that many people had already been checked in. I wasn’t going to get on the plane (and of course it was the last one). I was offered a travel voucher (and could have even stayed a night in a hotel had I really wanted) but I needed to hang around to collect a letter.
I called Caroline to turn around and come and get me again and whiled away the minutes. Caroline arrived back at the airport, but there was still no letter. She got booted and had to drive around with the kids (all super-enthusiastic about spending more time in the car) while I watched other people arrive and try and check-in to the flight.
It must have been a good half hour without the letters having arrived (how hard can a letter be? Surely there’d be some sort of template for these things) and I was starting to get somewhat annoyed when the customer service agent came up, checked that I was a single passenger and then asked if I’d like to get on the flight.
I was torn … the travel voucher would have been handy and the night at home would have been nice, everyone would have realised with the weather that I had a good excuse for not being there, but I really was supposed to be in Sydney. I took the seat that had become available because someone wasn’t feeling well and voluntarily gave it up.
I spent the next period in the Qantas Club watching the news. That turned out to be less than smart. All I saw was reports about how bad the weather was and the chaos that was being experienced at my destination. Maybe not the best thing to be flying into.
Anyway, I had a seat and at least with the reduced numbers the seat adjacent to mine was empty as well. Unfortunately the row behind me had a family with two young kids (one infant) and so did the row in front.
As the plane filled, I was exceptionally happy to realise that the infant that was sitting on his father’s lap behind me liked to stick his feet into the back of the seat. As much as a massage chair might be a nice thing, in the mood that I was in I just felt like snotting the little bugger. I endured. Eventually after the plane took off he must have been moved to his Mother’s seat because the kicking stopped thankfully.
Of course, then there was the two little girls in front with their father. Their Mum was across the aisle and managed to tune herself out from all that was going on. The girls weren’t bad per se, they were just annoying as all hell for most of the second half of the flight. With no screens on the Jetstar service, other forms of entertainment are required to occupy small children. These ones seemed to be devoid of electronics. That might be a great lifestyle choice for them, but let me assure you, it wasn’t for me. After all, the chosen alternative entertainment of singing nonsense on a plane really wasn’t appreciated.
They were just stringing together various sounds and singing them loud enough for me to hear (in one of those lovely small child loopy tunes that children create) despite the fact that I was watching my own electronically delivered entertainment. I was even wearing noise cancelling headphones, but clearly nothing was stopping that noise. They did it over and over and over again. At one point it evolved slightly to include “Nobody knows” over and again, to which I kept muttering in my head … “where the bodies will be found.”
The next evolution was the “Do Ray Me So Far La Tea Do” song from the Sound of Music. Talk about a treat. Especially when they decided to go for the 15th run through!
Then we were commencing landing and I had to turn off my electronics. Then the captain came on to announce that the airport had gone to single runway operation and so we would be entering a holding pattern and delayed in our arrival by another 30 minutes. It didn’t stop the singing.
I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but to cap off the singing, the two girls had brought light-up light sabres onto the plane. They flashed. Let me assure you, just in case you weren’t aware that bright blue flashing lights quite happily penetrate closed eyelids, just enough to prevent one from sleeping. It does help with teeth gnashing though.
Eventually we landed, 2 minutes before the Sydney airport curfew. It was a God-send considering the alternate of being diverted to Melbourne and spending another hour or so on the plane. I was free. I left the plane and raced for my luggage and a taxi, after all it was now 11:30pm and I was kind of over the whole experience.
As I walked away to the taxi rank, I couldn’t help but notice that I was walking through about a centimetre of water. Inside the terminal. There were enough leaks that you didn’t have to make it outside to start getting wet.
And it was at this point that I heard the staccato slapping of small feet running across the tiles, followed by a big slap and a collective gasp from everyone in the vicinity. I turned just in time to see one of the two canaries take a 6 foot slide through the massive puddle of water that I’d just escaped. Fortunately she wasn’t hurt, but she was wet and sure to be miserable.
Karma?
