"After Christmas"

One of the better movies in my VHS collection is “After Hours.” It’s an hysterical 1985 dark comedy about a nice guy living in NYC who just can’t get home one night.

That’s exactly how I felt the evening of December 26, beginning with my delayed connecting flight out of Dulles aiport in D.C. Everthing looked to be on time when I first arrived at the Independence Air concourse after my flight from Atlanta. The gate listed on the monitors was different than the gate listed on my boarding pass, and I didn’t realize that the monitor was wrong until after I’d sat outside the wrong gate for a while. I was immediately suspicious.

I was getting a tad nauseated--which is rare for me. So I decided to walk around. I drank an OJ, walked around, and soon felt better. I found the correct gate, and things were looking good. We were going to board on time.

That we did. Board, that is...on time. Leaving, though....well, that is another story.

I’d selected seat 1A, first row window. It was a small plane—just four seats per row—but I still wanted to be first off after landing so I could get the heck home. I boarded first and sat down immediately. Our flight was due to take off in about 15 minutes. Soon everyone was buckled in and ready to go. I’d be at JFK in Queens by 9-ish; home by 10:30 at the latest. Yes! Home....

Then a handsome young man (who looked to be the co-pilot, I guessed), stood up in front and announced that he had some bad news. We didn’t have a pilot for this flight. The good news was that we had a good tail wind, so the flight would only take 35-40 minutes, and we'd easily make up the time. He said the pilot would be there in 20 minutes. I admired his optimism and thanked the goddess of wind. It was getting hot on the plane, so I started fanning myself with the emergency instruction card.

Sure enough, exactly 20 minutes later I spied a pilot through the window. He boarded and went into the cockpit. That was the good news. Five minutes later, the nice young man came back out, all apologetic. He said that, unfortunately, it’s snowing in NY, and this particular pilot didn’t have enough hours to land us. He explained that, due to the ComAir strike that left zillions of people stranded the day before, Independence Air had added extra flights to try to accommodate those poor lost souls. (Is this a good time for me to mention that I hate the airlines? All of them. They never fail to ruin my Christmas.)

As I watched the pilot exit the plane, I turned to the girl next to me and said, “Wanna see a grown woman cry?” I just wasn’t feeling well. I wanted to go home and go to bed. I’d gotten sick with a bad head cold my first night in Atlanta and hardly slept either night there. (Me and twin beds just don’t get along.)

The next flight to JFK was scheduled to leave at 9pm, and it was rapidly approaching that time. I wondered, “Why don’t they just give us that pilot, and let the other planeload of people wait 20 minutes?”

By the time a pilot finally arrived, we’d been in the stuffy, warm plane for an hour, with no air circulating. This pilot was scheduled to go home but volunteered to stay on and get us home. My hero. But I was burning up by this time. I couldn’t wait to take off so the air could start flowing.

About halfway into the flight, I felt nauseated—-a bit worse than when I was in the airport earlier. The nice flight attendant, Aubrey, was serving drinks. I stood up and told her I just needed to stand up for a bit. She asked if I wanted a Ginger Ale, but I declined and headed toward the rear of the plane. The bathroom was occupied. By now I was pretty sure I was gonna be sick. I waited for what seemed like an eternity for the other passenger to come out of the bathroom. I went in. About a minute later I threw up. Three times.

Another first for me. I’d never thrown up on a plane before. (In fact, the last time I threw up was in 2000, I think.) Naturally, that wasn’t good enough. I had to top it off with diarrhea. Aaaaaaaaghh! What could be worse? After all of that, I cooled down my face and neck with a wet paper towel, and that seemed to help immensely. I went back to Aubrey, said “I think I’ll take that Ginger Ale now,” and sat down. I was feeling better.

Sitting there, I got hotter and hotter all over again. My whole body was sweating, and I started to feel prickly all over. We were SO close to landing, so there was no way I’d throw up again—we were almost there! In fact, we should’ve landed by now—what with the good tail wind and all. Hmph. But for some reason it took about 10 minutes longer than it should have.

That ten minutes was all it took.

I grabbed the paper air sickness bag and held it in my right hand, assuring the girl next to me that this move was just a precaution. There was no way I was going to throw up in my seat on an airplane in front of all those people! Absolutely no way.

We were on our approach. I was getting hotter and hotter and my stomach was not cooperating with my “no throwing up in public” policy . I did everything I could to hold it in. Big mistake. I should’ve just thrown up when I was prepared (with bag) to do so.

Instead, we hit the runway and were braking when all of a sudden I just hurled. The bag was in my right hand but I couldn’t get it all the way open in time. How mortifying that I threw up anyway! I yelled, “Aubrey, help! Get me a bag, any bag, even a plastic bag!” She came around and passed me another paper bag, and I threw up in that. This time I didn't miss.

Then she came back with a white plastic bag. I put the other two paper bags in that one and threw up again (and again and again) into the plastic bag. I threw up more than I thought a single stomach could hold. I’ve never been so sick or embarrassed in my life. I had throw-up on my shirt, throw-up on my jeans, throw-up on my purse, and throw-up on my right shoe. I just wanted to crawl in a hole and die.

Thank god for Aubrey and her quick thinking. She brought me moist towelettes (to clean up with) and several ice cold wet paper towels. That worked. My stomach was empty, we were taxiing, things were cooling off, and I was finally getting off that damn plane. I almost killed the rude lady in the row behind me who tried to push her way in front and get off the plane ahead of me. But I held my tongue and just barged into my rightful place in line and got off the plane into the freezing, snowy cold.

It was about 10pm.

But wait—there’s more! Stay tuned for the rest of “After Christmas,” as I tried in vain to make my way home to my sweet kitty cat and down pillows.