OMENS

I wonder just how many omens one must need before they say to themselves: TIME OUT... MAYBE THIS IS A SIGN. And, not a particularly good one, at that. Case in point:

I was recently on an airplane. Something I'm not crazy about to begin with, but I do it nonetheless. And then of course, kiss the ground when I once again land, safe and sound. I'm not really a bad flyer, just a potentially nervous one. Which isn't surprising actually, given I'm easily unnerved about almost anything known to man.

So basically, when I have to fly, boom. I fly. And THIS flight I was taking to Florida, I was pretty thrilled about given that FINALLY, it was an absolute DIRECT non stop flight. Something that is VERY unusual from my small town airport. Normally, I have to go from here to the hub of the airlines which is in a different city altogether and then fly out of there. Consequently, I need to do two flights to get anywhere. Except south Florida that is. Which btw, only went into effect a month ago.

Thus I was pretty tickled pink about the trip. It was like the good ole days all over again. Get on a plane. Get in your seat. Boom. Get off in the city you want. On the other hand... as I said before... just how many omens must one have before they decide... uh... tell you what. You guys fly without me. I'll wait for the next flight. Thanks, but no thanks.

As it happens, I had five obvious omens presented to me before I even took off, that ALmost rendered my possibly getting off the plane from the get go. Get this...

First of all, the plane was arriving from a northern city. Bingo. It arrived a half hour late which meant by the time all of us boarded, we left the gate an hour late. That's omen number one.

No sooner had we pulled away from the gate, than the pilot came on the speaker system and made his announcement: OH YEAH, FOLKS. JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW OUR GPS SYSTEM IS NOT WORKING BUT NO BIG DEAL. WE CAN EASILY FLY WITHOUT IT. NO WORRIES. Whatttttttt?? Are you f-ing kidding me??? In MY mind, that's as good as the pilot saying: I'm totally drunk, haven't slept in days and I just had a HUGE fight with my wife. Just the mind set I want from my pilot, right? But okay. I went with the flow. I mean with: Omen number two.

Okay. So we're on the runway... next thing I know, there's ANOTHER announcement: OOPS. SORRY FOLKS. WE APPARENTLY HAVE A MEDICAL EMERGENCY AND HAVE TO TAXI BACK TO THE GATE. Holy sh%t. You have SO got to be kidding me. Whammo. We head back to the gate for this medical deal. My personal take is: the lady heard about the GPS problem and therefore was this far from having a heart attack. Not that I'd blame her, of course. It could have EASILY been me. But alright... so the EMT comes on board and ushers the lady off. Omen number three.

THEN they tell us: SORRY. WE NOW NEED TO UPDATE THE PASSENGER LIST SINCE IT HAS SUBSEQUENTLY CHANGED. Which means... geez. Another 30 minutes on the ground. All in all... it's now two hours after the original departure time. So yeah... you got it. Omen number four.

At which point... the guy sitting next to me... 58 years old and has two kids from two different women, neither of which he ever married and who tells me he just had four beers, GOES NUTS WITH COUGHING AND COUGHING AND COUGHING. As in: I'm now getting friggin' ZILLIONS of his germs spewing upon me and want to absolutely jump out of the damn plane already. Uh... Omen number five???

How long you think his germs were all over me before I immediately hopped out of my seat and ran up front to the flight attendants to tell them.... SORRY. I CAN'T SIT NEXT TO THIS GUY. CAN I PLEASE TAKE THE AISLE SEAT THE EMERGENCY LADY VACATED WHEN I GUESS SHE THOUGHT SHE WAS HAVING A HEART ATTACK?? Bingo. I was able to move up about seven rows.

So basically, while I am normally VERY hip to omens, I can not beLIEVE that I allowed five to occur without my actually having gotten off this plane. Like how many signs do I NEED before I begin to smell something rotten in Denmark? I can only imagine the driving force in this case had to REALLY be something pretty powerful, to keep me on this flight.

And, indeed there was. As in: I was FINALLY going to be eating a real live hot pastrami sandwich in a mere couple of hours. Believe me... I wanted NOTHing to come between me and my sandwich! 

Which, as it turns out... wound up being a fabulous dinner at a fantastic Sushi restaurant, instead. A perfectly fine trade off however, given the next day I had a pastrami sandwich for both lunch AND dinner. Ahh... true culinary bliss.