I’m Alive!!!
Yes, I made it. I’ve intentionally waited all these days to post something to keep you all in suspense. It’s not often someone writes a blog post from inside an airplane in peril so for those of you who really enjoy action adventures and mysteries, I thought I’d treat you to the suspense of wondering if I’d made it or not.
For those of you who don’t care one way or the other, yes, I made it. British Airways turned our flight around and flew us back to Heathrow at an altitude low enough that we could both avoid dying from asphyxiation from the plane’s malfunctioning decompression system and get some great site seeing in at the same time. Truly, I hadn’t expected to see the Scottish coastline on this trip. It was strangely wonderful.
When we finally arrived back in London, the airline made arrangements for us to stay at the airport hotel and leave the next day on a charter back to Austin. In some ways this experience was more harrowing for me personally than the near-death flight since it had all the elements of what I consider “roughing it.” Anyone who knows me knows I don’t do well in such circumstances. It was truly awful. I was forced to wash my socks and underwear in the hotel sink and wear the same clothes two days in a row. I also endured the indignity of standing in line at the hotel Front Desk to ask if they had a toothbrush or any other amenity I could use. Unfortunately, that’s all they had—a toothbrush. At least it was an Eco-friendly toothbrush with some toothpaste that took me thirty minutes to figure out how to squirt out of the Eco-friendly container. Once I finally managed to unseal it, I found there wasn’t much in there which I’m guessing was the Eco-friendly part of the experience. The less you use the less you waste. There is that issue of tooth decay, but I’ll save that for a future post.
The great news is that since I’ve returned home I’ve managed to successfully overcome any fear of flying one might ordinarily develop from such an experience. In fact, I’ve done so well that I’ve flown Southwest Airlines three times which proves that I’m absolutely fine!