Hurricane Dean
So in light of recent events I seem it necessary to e-mail you and tell you that I almost died yesterday and it was in the least bit awesome. As a matter of fact it sucked. Actually I will go as far to say that it fucking sucked. Put on your PJ’s and fix a cup of tea because this e-mail should be pretty long. I have also sprinkled some obscenities into this e-mail so you understand the passion with which I not only have experienced these events, but also that with which I am writing them. So without further ado, the tragedy that was my life yesterday.
After we get cut off I try for about 10 minutes to call you back. I didn’t have anything particularly important to say, but I feel like one of the worst things in life is the lack of a proper good-bye. It was a bad omen of things to come. So after I stop calling I for some reason keep imagining you off to some Dragon’s cave in the dark ages where Ukranian peasants have doomed you to a life time or servitude to the demon beast. You had on one of those cone hats with the ribbon on top and it was pink. Strangely enough that is all you had on. Just kidding, well kind of. Actually I am not kidding, we should make this happen one day, sans dragon of course. Ok stop laughing so you can better appreciate the seriousness of this e-mail. My flight to Miami wasn’t bad because I slept the entire time. I had been up since 4 in the morning and it felt good to get an hour nap in. Which brings me to United States Weather Systems and the nerds who love them. We have a hurricane named Dean chillin in the gulf right now. He is a category 4 and pretty much did his best to send Jamaica back down to the bottom of the ocean. Now I don’t even know why I am even going on this trip considering that if you draw a line from Miama to Port of Spain, Trinidad, you will run smack dab into Dean. I was wondering how we were going to manage getting through this mother fucker of a hurricane and get my slightly over weight ass safe into yet another country I have never been before. Come to find out the wise agents at american airline had already thought of a solution. Oh we will just fly around it.
I knew it was going to be interesting when we spent on hour on the tarmac waiting for some “routine” maintenance to take place on our aircraft. Now just some background info on me and flying. I used to be pretty scared of it, now I am okay. I am okay as long as I get on board, the plane then leaves, the plane flies around for a while, and then the plane lands. I also need these events to happen in that order. I am not okay with routine maintenance coming in and fucking up my flow. So after the maintenance is done we take off. And about an hour into our flight the pilot come on to the PA and says “We would like to welcome you to our flight, our flight time is slightly extended today due to the course correction needed to bypass Hurricane Dean. In case you are wondering if you look out the right side of our aircraft, that is Hurricane Dean” Yeah you could see the hurricane from the plane. It was pretty cool actually, cool like seeing a tiger in bush right before it pounces on you and then rips your throat out into a million little threads. It was about 20 minutes after this announcement that the real fun began. We started hitting a little turbulence which is no big deal to me. It was the fact that this bouncing around lasted for another half hour that started to concern me. Then things got worse. The plane was dropping and rising and moving all about spontaneously and it was really intense. All the flight attendants had been ordered back to their seats and everyone on the plane was quiet. It was surreal now that I think about it. Then we hit some sort of wall and people started yelling because the plane was really all over the place. I am just waiting for the oxygen masks to fall from the ceiling. So here I am about to die and all I can think about was “God Damnit the last thing I had to eat was a fucking blueberry scone from starbucks” Seriously, that could have been my last thought in life. Not, “Man I should have done more for the kids” or “I wonder if I have ever really experienced love.” My last thought would have been about a fucking scone! How crazy is that? It was such a Garden State moment. Everyone on the plane is freaking out over life and not wanting it to end and I am Zach Braffing it all the way to the ocean floor. Seriously if the Shins would have been on the loud speakers I would have been like ok what the hell is going on here?
Needless to say, by proof of this e-mail, I didn’t die. We survived the storm. That is two hurricanes in the past 3 years that have tried to kill me and failed. I have looked death right in the eye twice and you know what? Death blinked…err…blinked twice, maybe it has some dirt in its eye or something. Regardless the flight scared the hell out of me. Trinidad come to find out is awesome. It is a beautiful country with some really good food. I am going out exploring tonight and hopefully find a new adventure to annoy you with.
