The Air Canada flight reminded me of all the reasons people are, in general, too special to fly. After being well delayed because an Indian family, all over the age of 100, couldn’t understand what seats were for and what to do with them until a flight attendant basically pushed them into them, we finally took off. Although at Heathrow you never just take off, you drive for an hour, get into line and watch as 20 flights take off before you. And THEN you take off.
It seemed just after takeoff that we may have the most high maintenance flyers on the planet. People were complaining about the screens before they even turned them on, there was a long row of old ladies discussing what movies they were going to watch and I swaer she yelled Jack Reacher across the plane 40 times. One lady thought you made your seat go back by force, smashing force even though there is definitely a button for that. And above all that people’s buzzers were going off like crazy! Over and over!! After way too long a time an announcement came on explaining that the volume buttons were not located on the chair but on the screen. The buttons on the chairs were the buzzers. So stop trying to control the volume with them…
I had seen almost all the new releases on the plane. I ended up watching Django Unchained, fucking Tarentino and gratuitous violence. Then I made the mistake of watching a heart wrenching documentary called Surviving the Plague, about activists roles in the Aids epidemic. Our Kleenex supply was already dwindling fast because of our disgusting colds but after that doc, I cried so much we were totally out.
Needless to say we got home safely. No engine fires, which had happened previously that day at Heathrow, completely shutting the place down.
We made it through customs, even though I absolutely brought stuff home I’m not supposed to. Like meat and stuff. Suckers. I knew they would never catch me.
My Mom picked us up and standing right next to her at our arrival area was someone else we knew from Almonte. Such a small world. It was so evident we were back in Canada because when I raced to the bathroom after we got off the plane and people were chatting, laughing and organizing who should go to the bathroom first because of their shortest flight connection times. I couldn’t picture this happening anywhere else. It was evident, even as far back as Heathrow, when lining up for the plane that we were heading to Canada. I could hear people saying sorry for everything, which I always get made fun of in SA for. Air Canada was also changing people’s seats around and they were all happy too, no problems. There was a Lesbian couple that couldn’t keep their hands off each other in front of us in the queue. It was all so Canadian:)
We got into the car and told Mom how we were so looking forward to eating healthy, like tons of vegetables and we both were anxious to get back to the gym as all our clothes were tight. So we stopped at Burger King on the way home for dinner. Ok healthy eating starting AFTER today!
We are so happy to be home! We are excited about getting back to work, assuming we are both still wanted at our jobs…we have been gone awhile, they may have forgotten about us. Anyhoo, onward and upward in our safe and beautiful country of ours.