PLANE TALES FROM AN INSOMNIAC

I hate sleep. I don't see what the big deal is about. Like Sam Elliott once said, "I'll get plenty of sleep when I'm dead." I'm on my way back from Los Angeles on the 12:01 A.M. flight that arrives in Atlanta at 7:30 A.M. I should be sleeping. But, I guess as always, my urge to rest is overruled by my fear of missing something good. My intuition proves me right again.

I'm sitting in a bulkhead seat, the poor man's first class, next to a lady from Dunwoody who missed her 10:30 P.M. flight and she is mad. She has obviously had nearly 2 hours to stew and steam over what she thinks is Delta's fault...that she missed her flight. She is as antsy as the Taco Bell Chihuahua at a neutering clinic and I think I know why.

She may have spent her considerable wait time putting down a few drinks, hitting the bottle, slurping the sauce, kissing the slippery lips of the long neck. Nothing is as fun to watch as the combination of insobriety and fear of flying. In this case it has landed this lady somewhere between the hyperactivity of Richard Simmons and the paranoid delusions of Richard Nixon: their child being Jim Carey on prozac.

She finally settled down, but I promise, her herky jerky-ness was affecting the reception on the in-flight movie.

I do understand her plight though. She literally had to watch her plane leave because of the strict rule that when the door closes, no one else can board the plane. I guess someone boarding late might witness their secret formula for vacuum sealing 4 peanuts at a time in it's impenetrable foil pouch. Things didn't used to be so strict.

Years ago, I was once allowed to board a flight late. I arrived way early to my gate and took a little nap. Sitting up straight, I folded my arms over my briefcase and was asleep as fast as you could say PBS Documentary. I woke up the area was cleared and my plane was gone. I rushed to the counter acting as if it was their fault and asked when they had boarded my plane. The agent told me the plane was on the runway. I had slept the entire loading and push-back.

Stunned and desperate I had nothing to say. But, the agent made a call on her walkie-talkie and quickly I was escorted to a bus loaded with people heading to their own plane, which didn't have it's own gate. The bus took me to my plane that was now sitting on the runway like a lame duck. They rolled up one of those metal, presidential stairways and I made my way up to the door. I couldn't resist. I turned around and waved to the crowd.

The walk down the aisle was quite embarrassing yet empowering. I had stopped a whole plane!! And what this has to do with sleeping, I seem to forget. Maybe I'll recall after my nap.

Billy Murphy - 1/30/99