During a brutal, and extremely unusual, heavy snowstorm in Vancouver, BC, I was at the airport waiting out my delayed flight with thousands of other people all trying to get to various places. Eventually (after about 6 hours of no flights) one runway was cleared, and a slow and erratic process of boarding flights began. Naturally people had spread out to all the bars and restaurants, so there were a few announcements of “John Smith, please come to Gate 16, your plane is boarding”.
Eventually we get to “Jane Doe, please come to Gate 25 immediately, your plane is boarding”
5 minutes later “Jane Doe, this is what you’ve been waiting for all day!”
2 minutes later “Jane Doe, please come to Gate 25 immediately so you can enjoy watching your plane depart”
Then, from some other counter “Jane Doe, come over to Gate 38! We’re going to Edmonton! Edmonton is waaay better than Calgary anyways!”
Apparently after multiple hours of standing around and being pestered by angry travellers, the airline staff get a little bit punchy.
Puddle jumper from SFO to PDX. Alaska Airlines, boards both front and back and I’m in the back. As I’m getting ready to board the rear stairs, I smell the unmistakable smell of someone who has been drinking moonshine for the last several hours. Shrug it off, get to my seat.
Coming out of the bathroom and trying (and failing) to get across me in the middle and woman in the aisle is a girl who maybe, just maybe, is 21, but I doubt it. She’s wearing a tiny pair of shorts and a wet shirt over a swimsuit, and has a beach bag full of sand.
She. Is. Wasted. Full of energy, stinky and wasted. I’m talking epic wasted here - could barely stand up. She slurs something about California (I think she was trying to sing “Estimated Prophet”) and starts giggling hysterically. I can hear the flight attendants talking about “keeping an eye on her” so I gently tell her she needs to be quiet and not attract attention. Then I help with her seatbelt, which had defeated her. Then she pretends to read the magazine. And it’s upside down. As I whisper that to her, she thinks that’s the funniest thing ever, and cracks up.
That was enough. Off she goes, and the flight attendant and the woman next to me all share incredulous looks and shake our heads.
I mean, who got her to SJC from the beach, probably Santa Cruz 30 miles away? Why would they think she was OK to travel? How did she get over Highway 17 without puking? How did she get that far through the airport, past security, past the gate agent and onto the tarmac w/o getting stopped? The mind reels.