Ready for take-off, more ready to land
By KATE ROWLAND
I hate airplanes.
It's nothing personal. I just have no confidence in the flight capabilities of a 40-ton piece of metal because most 40-ton pieces of metal do not have such capabilities. Airplanes also have the disadvantage of being run by airlines and of flying from airports, neither of which detracts from the overall stress of flying.
I boarded the first airplane at Chicago O'Hare International Airport, named for a man who gained fame by shooting airplanes violently out of the sky and sending them crashing to the ground in a fiery heap. Shortly after taking off, the captain came on and said, "We're flying straight into a hurricane. Hopefully we'll land far enough inland since they don't teach us how to do this in flight school. Don't worry, though; we're pretty sure we can handle it. Keep your seat belts fastened just in case."
We wound up landing in "crash position" which apparently means "without bothering to put down the landing gear despite torrential rains and 40 mph winds."
Despite flying into a hurricane and watching lightning strike the runway as we were descending and having to slide down a rain-drenched yellow evacuation slide, I enjoyed my stay in North Carolina. I especially enjoyed my trip to Raleigh, the only state capital whose capitol building sports a statue of George Washington carved by a man who had not only never seen George Washington, but who had also never laid eyes on an actual drawing, picture or sketch of him. This fine artist undertook the work on commission, costing North Carolina something like four times the gross yearly income of the entire state government. I believe, after 200 years, that they are still paying for it. The best part of this whole story is the product of all this money. If you go to Raleigh, you too can see George sitting, resplendent, in the middle of the rotunda, clad as a Roman soldier. He's writing the words of his Farewell Address on a clay tablet with a stylus. In Italian.
In the words of my North Carolina host, "My tax dollars at work."
Sad as I was to leave North Carolina and its tobacco museums (there are at least four in the Metro Durham area), I had to go to Bethesda, Md., for a medical school interview. So I booked a flight to Baltimore-Washington International Airport. I got on a tiny little airplane with five other passengers and a surly flight attendant. For reasons that remain unclear, we stopped at Dulles, the main D.C. airport, on our way to BWI. These airports are ridiculously close — it's like flying from South Bend to Elkhart. Then United put us on an airplane so teeny that, when seated in the last row, I asked my neighbor for a six-letter word for "gives help," the captain heard me and hollered "Assist!" from the cockpit. When we descended to land at BWI, I could still see Dulles on the horizon. The whole ordeal took an hour and 15 minutes.
It takes an hour to make the same trip by taxi, as I found out on the way home. From Bethesda, I took the Metro to Union Station, a train to the BWI area, then a shuttle bus to the airport and finally tried to check in. The United man informed me that my flight was going to be delayed. He offered to put me on a cab to Dulles to catch a flight from there that would get me back to O'Hare before the delayed one would. I accepted his voucher and, along with six other passengers, was put in a taxi driven by a driver that flinched and honked his horn every time someone's cell phone rang. The woman next to me started triggering her phone just to watch him yelp and dance.
United also gave us vouchers for a drink at the Dulles bar when we finally got there, since we had three hours to kill. The other taxi passengers and I went together. When I asked for a club soda, the bartender looked at me and said, "I need to see your ID."
I replied, "But I only want a club soda."
He said, "You need to be 21 to be in the bar area of the airport."
So I got out my driver's license and showed it to him.
He said, "This says you're under 21."
"Yes," I said, because it did. It said it in a dozen places in big red letters. "But look here, where my birthday is printed. I've been 21 for awhile. I just haven't gotten a new driver's license."
He glanced at it and said, "I'm sorry, you can't be in the bar if you are under 21."
I whipped out my passport, which I'd brought with me for other reasons, and said, "Look, I'm 21."
He took my passport, looked at my birthday, did some elaborate mental subtraction, and gave me my club soda.
In what I considered my small victory over the flight establishment, I told him to bill United full price for it plus a nice tip for him.
Kate Rowland is a senior. Her column usually appears every other Monday.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Viewpoint Stories for Tuesday, November 9, 1999
