This story gives more meaning to my recently acquired name ... Crappy. It was in September 2008 during my visit to USA.
A word of caution, if you are a heart patient or can not stand disgusting stories, this one is not for you.
Here I was, standing at the boarding queue at Mumbai International Airport, excited to fly to the US for the first time. In fact it was the first time I was ever gonna be on a flight, so that doubled the excitement. The journey was going to be quite exhausting, 15 hours, and I had two stop overs, one at New York and the other one at Raleigh, before I reached my final destination, Atlanta.
I had already checked-in online and reserved a window seat for myself. I did not expect then that I would be accompanied by a stinky lady (gosh! if you are reading this, please start using a deodarant) and a fat ass man, who would block my way every time I had to go to pee and would make the already uncomfirtable situation even worse. I realized that the window seats are not advisable for frequent fliers who are also frequent 'pee'ers. I had a colleague, who was also flying along with me, but he was seated very far away.
The flight took off! A blood rushing experience. I loved the feel of gravity pulling me down tight on the seat while the plane tried to pull me up and higher. I had to constantly keep gulping air to avoid my ears from shutting down due to air pressure. Soon we were 1500 meters in the air and Mumbai was more visibly clear that from the ground, because from that height you cannot see the clouds of dust you find wherever you go in Mumbai. Moreover, since I was flying during the night, Mumbai seemed to be some kind of jewelry. It was awesome. The unexpected shakes in the plane due to the turbulences made the journey more adventurous.
By the way, did I tell you that Delta airlines have the oldest air hostesses in the world? So when you are traveling on Delta, push aside all your dreams and fantasies of meeting hot, well endowed blondes that ask you if you need any 'services'. Instead, think of all the nightmares where you are surrounded by grannies with loose, wrinkled, weary skin and yellow, chipped dentures. One more thing, if you ever happen to travel to the US, think twice before opting for a Delta flight coz they charge heavy on extra or overweight baggage, flat $150. Also, the food on Delta airlines is substandard. The lady next to me had ordered a veg meal and she was given some boiled vegetables and steamed rice. So I went for the non-veg meal. After all, how bad can you cook a chicken? It was at least eatable. I wanted to call for a glass of wine or whisky but since it was my first time, I didn't know that it is served for free. Damn!
Anyways, the first flight was for 10 hours and I spent around 6 hours watching movies (What happens in Vegas and The Bucket List, a must watch for movie lovers), a couple in a short naps, and another couple looking out of the window. In the mean time I also disturbed the people next to me three times while going for a pee. This one time the fat ass guy took so much time to get off his seat and make some way for me to pass by, had he took a second more I would have wet my pants.
But the story is not about all this crap. It is actually about the 'crap'. I always get a feeling of disgust when it comes to using the public toilets. I advoid using public toilets as much as I can. For peeing it is ok, but when it comes to taking a crap, I would rather prefer it to be a cleaner place. Don't know how many asses sat on this toilet. I don't mean that toilets in planes are not clean, but since it was my first time, I wasn't comfirtable. Also, I tried to fit myself in the 2x2 feet toilet of the plane, but couldn't. So I had to hold on to the pressure.
In the morning, as the flight took the descent for landing, my crappy pressure was on the ascent. It felt like the increasing gravity was actually trying to pull it out of my ass. I had to fight the war of my life to hold it back in and avoid any embarrassment. The flight landed with a thud. While everyone was cursing the pilot for a bad landing, I was thanking him form the bottom of my heart, coz the jerk had pushed the shit a bit inside, buying me some time to clear the security checks and find a toilet. However, I realized that this was a punishment for something I did in the past life (may be I kicked someone's ass so hard that he couldn't shit again). We (me and my colleague) just had 40 minutes stop over time and people who had already been there said that we would definitely miss our next flight. So if I had to crap, it would be after boarding my next flight, to Raleigh.
We cleared the security checks just 5 minutes ahead of time to reach the boarding lane for our flight, where we discovered that some other flight was being boarded and the boarding for our flight would start after 20 mins. Great! So I have time to relax my butt. I gave the custody of my baggage to my colleague and ran to the closest toilet I could find. Thuddddd!!!! Zippppp!!!! Phhhhhrrrrr!!!!! Wuuuuhhooooowwww!!!! I was as relaxed as a mother after giving birth to a baby. Thank you dear god for delaying the flight!
As I was sitting in the stinky vapors, my colleague ran in to the restroom area and started yelling out my name from outside. I was so embarrassed. Damn! Now everyone would know that it was me who was exploding fire crackers in the toilet. But who else knows me here, other than my colleague? So I yelled back "Kya Hua Be?". He replied, "Abbey, our flight has started boarding, you better be quick". I was done with the main act and was already proceeding towards the concluding act, so I thought I would manage to make it on time and said "Ok. Coming in two minutes".
The concluding act after a crap, for Indians at least, means washing your ass clean with water. But the Americans save water where you actually need it. They just wipe off their asses. It was similar to what Alanis Morisette sung in the song Ironic: "It's thousand spoons when all you need is a knife". In this case for me it was: "It's thousand toilet rolls when all you need is a jet". It was my first experience of cleaning up the mess with a sheet of paper and no water. No matter how well you clean it with a paper, it always gives you a feeling of "something is still there" and that gave me goose bumps throughout my journey till the hotel.
I zipped up my pants, washed my hands and ran towards the boarding queue. We handed our boarding passes to the attendant and he said the three golden words that kept ringing in my ears for the next 5 minutes ... "Flight took off!". Apparently, the flight had finished boarding and taken off. They had started boarding the next flight. That bloody attendant had told me the flight will not board until next 20 minutes and the flight had already finished boarding and taken off in just 15 minutes. I looked at my colleague. He was so pissed off at me as we had missed our flight coz I was in the toilet taking a crap. But he couldn't say a word to me as he was a junior to me and this was our first project together.
I did not know what to do next. Will they put us on some other flight? Do we need to pay for that flight? Or are we stuck at the New York Airport? I imagined myself like Tom Hanks from the Terminal spending the next few months at the airport. I asked the attendant what to do and he guided me to the service desk. Behind the desk was a lady holding her head and cursing the headache. I thought this would be the worst time to speak to her, but I had no choice. "Excuse Me, we have missed our flight to Raleigh. Our luggage is on the flight. What should we do?" I asked. She came back with the million dollar question, "Why did you miss the flight?" It was so embarrasing for me that the next words took ages to come out of my mouth, just like Atal Bihari Vajpayee, "Be...cause ... because I ... I ... was in the ... the restroom". She flared her nose and pushed her eyebrows up to her forehead with surprise ... No, with shock. I am sure I was the first person to miss a flight over a crap. She did not say a word for the next 10 seconds, but then she realized she needs to speak something here, "Ehhh! Ok! Hang on!". Thank god she didn't ask anything further.
She checked the flight schedule and said "There is a flight at 4PM for Atlanta, but you will have to wait in the Airport premises until then." It was 9AM at that time and spending 7 hours at the ariport did not seem viable to us. "Is there any other way?" I asked. She checked again and said, "There is another flight from Laguardia Airport, which will leave at 10.15PM. But for that you need to catch a cab and be there before 9:40AM. It is 40 minutes in a cab from here. That is not possible, plus you have to pay $80 for the cab". So we had to go for the 4PM flight. We both agreed on the 4PM flight and asked the lady to check us in. The next thing was a surprise.
She keyed in our names for the 4PM flight, when she noticed that the attendant at the boarding queue had already checked us in for the flight from Laguardia to Atlanta. This was a mistake from the airport crew, they boarded us in a flight without asking us for our preference. I didn't think of it as a mistake, but the lady herself admitted it. She wrote a traveller's check of $80, gave it to me and said, "There would be a cab named Roskstar waiting for you outside the airport. Give this to the cab driver. He'll take to Laguardia airport for your next flight". This journey was really turning out to be rocking. I was amazed with the quality, speed and the level of services being provided by the airport authorities. God bless America!
We took the cab, reached just in time at the Laguardia airport and boarded on to our flight to Atlanta. it was a 2 hour journey, which passed by smoothly looking at the chick across the aisle; tall, slim, cute looks, mini-skirt, perfect bust ... Man! She was Grrrrrrreeeeeaaaatttt!
We reached the Atlanta Airport and started looking for our baggage. We learned from the service desk that the flight from Raleigh to Atlanta had already landed and our baggage would be on aisle number 6. We could not find our baggage on aisle 6 or any other aisle and feared that our baggae was misplaced. We went to the baggage counter and showed them the baggage numbers stuck on our boarding passes. She went into a room and brought out the baggage which was safely placed in a corner after no one claimed for it for half an hour. Again I was very impressed with the organized work.
I was happy that everything ended well. Otherwise I would have had to face a lot of embarrassments from my colleague, the airport authorities and most importantly, my managers, and that too, all over a crap!
Posts
Comments (0)