Chapter 2

No such luck. The masses were packing in already with no way out. Maybe, just maybe I would be able to find something on the "free" movie channel engaging enough to completely distract me on the flight. I got into the seat as I tried to ignore the two girls who were talking a mile a minute as they texted who knows how many different people at once. That must have gotten boring because they kicked off some sort of video chat until we were told to turn off all electronics. Did that get them quiet? Nope. They started gossiping to each other at the same time.

Only three hours, maybe less if we can get in the air quickly, I thought. You can do this Joe; you have had it much worse for much longer flights.

I was working so hard to tune out the two teeny boppers; I had missed the telltale sounds coming from the row of tightly packed oversized passengers behind me. I was used to ignoring the squeaks of surprise from other passengers when we pushed back from the gate, started to move forward or even hit potholes on the taxiway. The sound I heard from behind me was not a sound of surprise. It was a lot worse...

I felt the plane nudge around the final turn toward the runway and heard the captain say we were next in line for takeoff. Just as he got on the runway, set the brakes and throttled up the engines, out came the shriek of pure terror. One of the oversized women behind me had a panic attack. Her trying to get out of her seat and yelling to let her off the plane made her knock the hell out of my seat. It fared better than the other woman back there. Blood sprayed from the second woman's broken nose and got all over Big Bubba. That started him screaming like a girl at the sight of the blood and yelling for help. Of course that caused him to start having his own panic attack from claustrophobia. If every one of the way too large for one seat crowd could get out of their seats as fast as the man did, I would have less problems with them making it almost impossible for me to the aisle to go take a piss.

We were already rolling and I felt the nose start to lift off the ground when the man got free of his seat. He was on the way to the front of the plane with the woman in the middle's blood all over his shirt. The woman that started all of this was still trying to get free of her seat too. This was not the first time I had been right there at this rodeo. I knew to lean forward as far as I could. Assuming the crash position.

Add another 2 hours to the flight, I told myself knowing that was about the average to get us all deplaned, rescreened, reloaded, and back in the air again. At least the two girls are quiet now.

I did not need to see it to be able to picture the air marshal having to suffer through watching these two knocking around everyone on both sides of the aisle as they were made to get back to their seats so the plane could land. When he got back here he quickly saw the futility of that exercise. He managed to get them sort of strapped into some crew jump seats somewhere and took up the aisle seat in the row behind me as the plane made an emergency landing at some air reserve base north of Atlanta.

Shit. No air here and stuck on the tarmac with no chance to get off to stretch our legs or even get back to a terminal to disembark. I wonder if I should go ahead and hit the air marshal. It has to be better than hours stuck with the texting, gossiping, video chatting girls.

Once we were on the ground and stopped, I got my belt loose to look back over the seat at the situation.

Damn, what a fucking mess. Please, please, please do not let the airline decide they have to fix everything to let us leave, I prayed with the airline gods.

At least one prayer in my life was answered, but a price. When the other two ripped themselves free of their in-flight prisons, they bent the arm rests. Special equipment was brought in through the nearest emergency exit for the rescuers to pry them away from the woman. One look into the eyes of the very beefy military fire rescue team let me know they were going have a much worse day than me.

It took two hours to get the woman free and another two hours of working in teams to lift, shift, and shove the dead weight of that woman all the way to boarding doors just behind first class. I could not see it for sure, but as I said, not my first rodeo with passengers the designers failed to consider when building these planes. The airlines must have multi-billion dollar funds setup to pay off the families of these large passengers when a plane crashes. To date I have seen no aircraft with exit rows big enough for them to get through. If they can't get to a boarding door in time, forget it.

Fun was over it seems, or so I thought...

As I sat back down I noticed both of the girls were squirming all over the place. When one of them saw me looking, she got really red in the face and turned away.

Finally one of them said what I suspected, "I got to pee so bad. I am not sure I can hold it anymore."

"Well go already. The bathrooms are right there," I told them.

They looked at me like most people, you know, like I had two heads and one said, "We can't! They have not turned off the fasten seatbelt or said we could move around."

You have to be kidding me!

"Look. The engines are off and we are not going anywhere anytime soon. So you quickly slip back to the bathroom and do your thing, pee in your clothes or see how if good your aim is into your drink cup. Guys got it really easy when it comes to taking a piss and I keep an empty water bottle," I told the whiney girl.

Her eyes got wide and she said, "You would not really do that! No way!"

"I would, and I have, many times in fact. This is not the first time I have spent hours stuck on a plane going nowhere," I told her back.

She looked me with fire in her eyes and said, "Prove it!"

Yeah it is childish, but I have nothing else to do right now anyway. Shit, might as well have some fun to pass the time. If they bothered to look around that curtain they would see people going back and forth to the can.

"You first," I replied acting a few decades younger than my age. "I am not doing the pee-pee dance am I? You have a skirt on and a pretty big cup. I go last."

The whiney girl kept chewing her lip as she looked between me and the other girl. Well the one between us could not wait any longer. She popped her seat belt, squirmed around, kicked off her shoes, reached under her skirt, and quickly worked off her tights, hose, leggings or whatever the hell those things were. They disappeared into the bag at her feet. A few more seconds of squirming and her panties ended up in her bag as well. I was surprised she was smart enough to know how bad it would look to have them around her ankles if someone popped in. Right on queue a flight attendant showed up, pulled the curtain back a bit. She asked if we wanted some water and bag of pretzels.

"I need to pee," the whiney girl said.

I watched the flight attendant roll her eyes as she gave the girl a stupid look and said, "The bathrooms are right there. The engines are off and we are not going to be departing anytime soon. We would prefer it if you would not urinate in the seats. It delays the next flight's departure."

The girl did have the presence of mind to let the flight attendant move back before she ripped her belt off and rushed toward the bathroom.

Surprisingly the girl next to me just took two bottles of water and pretzels. I knew better than to drink too much right now, but I put the water bottle with the ones I always packed and thanked her for remembering to come check on us. I smiled from ear to ear as she gave me the look of disgust that I get from everyone that worked for any of the airlines when make my mom proud by using my good manners. Whatever.