The naked lamp is lit..
Perhaps you read the bizarre story about the airline passenger who suddenly felt the need to strip naked and lay in his seat thusly, causing the flight to land in Albuquerque. Obviously this poor fellow had some break with reality, but on some plane trips in the past I can almost identify with him. One such trip in 1988 comes to mind.
The wife, at the time, and I had been at my family's home on Torch Lake, Michigan an hour north of Traverse City. To return home we had to catch a commuter flight from Traverse City to either Detroit or Chicago. On this trip we changed planes in Detroit which required about a 2 hour wait in the airport. We boarded the American Airlines flight to Dallas, taxied out to wait our turn in line to take off at which point all hell broke loose in the unfriendly skies as a huge group of thunderstorms started letting loose over the airport. They went on.....and on, until the captain informed us that this might go on for awhile and so to save fuel he needed to shut the engines down and with all the gates full we were going to stay put on the taxiway.
So there we sat for the next 3 hours in the darkness, with only some emergency lighting on in the cabin. And with no engines powering the ventilation systems we sat in the stifling humid still air. The crew strongly suggested that we not leave our seats and being in the window seat I could not stretch my 6'2" frame out at all. To make matters worse, I had on my favorite lizard skin cowboy boots, which were only good for about 6 hours of comfort before they started feeling like beaver traps on my feet. Being the sort who likes to move around often, my only option was to squirm around which irritated the wife to no end.
Which brings me back to the naked guy in the paper today. I think that probably I was only minutes away from a claustrophobia attack, which is what could have happened to this guy. If I could have gotten out of my window seat I would have surely stripped off those lizard skin boots and may not have stopped there.
The wife, at the time, and I had been at my family's home on Torch Lake, Michigan an hour north of Traverse City. To return home we had to catch a commuter flight from Traverse City to either Detroit or Chicago. On this trip we changed planes in Detroit which required about a 2 hour wait in the airport. We boarded the American Airlines flight to Dallas, taxied out to wait our turn in line to take off at which point all hell broke loose in the unfriendly skies as a huge group of thunderstorms started letting loose over the airport. They went on.....and on, until the captain informed us that this might go on for awhile and so to save fuel he needed to shut the engines down and with all the gates full we were going to stay put on the taxiway.
So there we sat for the next 3 hours in the darkness, with only some emergency lighting on in the cabin. And with no engines powering the ventilation systems we sat in the stifling humid still air. The crew strongly suggested that we not leave our seats and being in the window seat I could not stretch my 6'2" frame out at all. To make matters worse, I had on my favorite lizard skin cowboy boots, which were only good for about 6 hours of comfort before they started feeling like beaver traps on my feet. Being the sort who likes to move around often, my only option was to squirm around which irritated the wife to no end.
Which brings me back to the naked guy in the paper today. I think that probably I was only minutes away from a claustrophobia attack, which is what could have happened to this guy. If I could have gotten out of my window seat I would have surely stripped off those lizard skin boots and may not have stopped there.
