Worst Flight Ever

The wings were iced over. 

The ground crew kept deicing them, but within a couples minutes they were iced over again. We were nearly 45 minutes late taking off because of this continual deicing process. 

My worst flight ever.

It was December 2003, in Billings, Montana. My brother and I were on board a Horizon flight, all packed and set to go home for the Christmas holiday, except that it was five degrees outside, snowing, getting dark, and those freaking wings wouldn't stop icing over.

My brother Tim is a commercial pilot, (I know, cool huh? Sorry girls, he's married). But in the winter of 2003, he was still going to school for aeronautical science. He had been flying for several years at that point though, so I liked flying with him. Whenever I would get nervous about a bit of turbulence, or a strange sound, I would just look at him, and if he appeared relaxed and unconcerned, then I knew there wasn't any reason to be worried. 

The fact that we were delayed getting off the ground due to bad weather and ice didn't seem to bother Tim, so I tried to not let it bother me. I was so thankful when we finally took off and got above the clouds. I figured we were good to go for the next hour and a half to Seattle. It was a small plane, and Tim and I were seated in the very front row. The flight attendant was preparing to start the beverage service. He stood only a couple feet away from us, getting his cart ready.

All of the sudden, we heard a pop and then an alarm started screeching. Loud. Piercing. Terrifying. The flight attendant's face froze and he ran - RAN - to his seat at the back of the plane. He had abandoned us! I looked at Tim - my last resort - for comfort. He looked at me, serious as I'd ever seen him, and said, "Tighten your seatbelt. It can't hurt."

OMG! OMG! OMG! We're all going to crash and die!

That alarm went on for what seemed like an eternity, although it was probably less than two minutes. No joke, folks, it sounded like the roof of the plane was going to rip off, sucking us all out into the frigid air with it. My heart was racing and I was saying as many prayers as I could. 

Finally the captain came on and gave some explanation, that, honestly, I didn't even hear because I was still too frightened. In the end though, we landed safely in Seattle. But that was my worst flight ever.

When you have kids, the things that used to scare you about going on airplanes kind of shifts. As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, I still worry about the plane crashing. But when I travel with my kids, my thoughts are usually occupied with worrying about whether or not they will behave on the flight, and hoping that they don't make a terrible scene.

I've had some pretty interesting flights since becoming a mom. In fact, it started before Jacob was even born. 

Richard was taking me to Virginia to see where his parents live. We were on a red-eye flight. I was about 10 weeks pregnant with Jacob, and while I hadn't dealt with any real morning sickness, I had bouts with nausea every now and then.

Everything was going fine, to begin with. Richard was sitting at the window, I was in the middle, and a man, who I did not know, was in the aisle seat. About an hour into the flight, I started feeling notsogood. I was afraid to tell Richard, because I didn't want him to freak out, so I tried to convince my stomach to chill, and to understand that it was seriously not a convenient time.

It didn't work. 

Richard looked over at me at one point, and said, "You look kind of pale. Are you feeling okay?" 

Right then, my nausea kicked into overdrive. I knew we had a problem! I shook my head no, afraid to open my mouth to speak. Richard started searching desperately in the seat back pockets for barf bags, and OF COURSE, we were the only two seats on the entire plane that didn't have them. 

Uh oh. 

Vomit was coming up my throat, I slapped my hand over my mouth, in an attempt to keep it down. Richard looked terrified, thinking I was about to puke all over him. I knew I couldn't wait for him to ask someone if we could borrow their barf bag, so I literally jumped over the stranger next to me, and raced like 13 rows up to the front bathroom. I just barely made it. I didn't even have a chance to shut the door behind me before I was throwing up.

So that was a bad flight.

Then we had a nice break for awhile. Jacob was a really easy baby. Before he was six months old he flew to Hawaii, California and Virginia, and he did great on all those flights. After that we didn't do any flying for awhile. 

Last December we flew to Illinois to spend Christmas with Richard's parents and extended family. At that point, Jacob was 20 months old, and Ryan was 9 months. I had Jacob in my lap, and Richard had Ryan in his. Because of airplane rules we weren't allowed to sit in the same row, so Richard and Ryan were seated about three rows behind us. I knew Richard was nervous, since that was his first time flying with both the kids.

Not even five minutes into the flight, Ryan barfed all over Richard's shirt. Since I was so far ahead of them, and in a window seat, there was nothing I could do to help, so he sat there for the next three hours with a whimpering Ryan, and dried puke on his sweater.

Jacob didn't throw up on me, but I think I might have preferred that. He spent the entire three hours screaming and kicking at me and thrashing his arms. It was exhausting to say the least, and only slightly embarrassing.

The minute we landed in Chicago and the four of us were reunited, Richard looked me straight in the eye and said, "We're not having any. more. kids. And we're never flying with them again!"

That was our last trip with them. It's been almost nine months, and today we are heading to California to visit my mom's family. I keep telling myself that it's not even a three hour flight, and that this will be Jacob's first time in his car seat on the plane. He normally loves being in his car seat, so I am keeping my fingers crossed that we don't wind up being that family that the rest of our fellow passengers shoot dirty looks at, and then recant to their family and friends for years afterward of their "Worst flight ever".

Please tell me about your worst flight ever, so that hopefully, whatever ends up happening today, won't be as bad as the stories you share. 

And if they aren't worse than today's flight, then I guess I will just have to update this post on my worst flight ever.