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Wednesday, February 03, 1999 By Samantha Bennett
I was feeling the need to get out of town. To visit distant friends and perhaps make new ones. To see someplace different, maybe a little exotic. So I booked a flight to Indianapolis and braced myself to enjoy the pleasures of the modern air travel experience.
For instance, no matter how early you leave home, no matter how much extra time you allow, you will lose all of your cushion in the parking lots at Pittsburgh International and end up running for the plane. It was as a direct result of the parking lot's temporal black hole that I first discovered the engineering flaw in the design of those small suitcases with the wheels and pull-out handles.
Cruising the lot until the airport shrinks to a dot on the horizon means having to do an O.J. (the running part, not the stabbing part) through the terminal, but those rolling suitcases don't perform well at high speed. They develop a vibration, which becomes a shimmy, which turns into a rocking, which wrenches your helpless arm as the bag lurches over onto its side, typically just as you're hearing, "CAUTION! THE MOVING WALK IS NEARING ITS END."
I think Ralph Nader needs to look into this.
So I spent a weekend with friends in Indiana. Mostly, it looks a lot like here, except with more pickup trucks. While there, I finally got to see "Shakespeare in Love." It's a terrific movie, but I couldn't help thinking as the credits rolled that it's a package bomb in the hapless hands of high school boys out on dates. Don't do it, kids. Because after your girl has been bowled over with all that passion and poetry, all those exquisite words of love, you can't turn to her and go, "Uh, you gonna finish 'em Milk Duds?"
Sunday afternoon, I was delivered only slightly behind schedule to the Indianapolis airport and hurried to my gate, where I was greeted by two words that are second only to LAVATORY OCCUPIED on a traveler's most-dreaded list: FLIGHT CANCELED.
The weather was fine. The gate agent blamed a mechanical problem they just couldn't fix. What? What can't they fix? Did the tail fall off? How did it land? If they can't fix it at a major airport, will it have to be towed to a shop somewhere? Why aren't there any spare planes? It's not like there's no place to keep them. You know what I think? I think they didn't sell enough tickets on that flight. And somehow that's apparently my fault, because I'm now the one who has to abandon all my plans for the afternoon and waste an extra three hours making a one-hour trip. To Pittsburgh. From Indianapolis. Via Charlotte, N.C.
The Charlotte flight was packed. Being on a full plane really makes you wonder why people fly when they could be having a nice, civilized road trip with leg room, comfortable seats, cup holders and music that is not leaking out the headphones of the young Visigoth next to you. Not to mention a trunk. People stagger onto the plane carrying not a small, simple bag or two, but all kinds of unsuitable things - stuffed animals, bouquets, sombreros, tubas - clutched tightly in their hands, unpacked, unwrapped, and they fling themselves panting into their seats and try to wedge all of these things into the overhead compartment, which is already full of pillows, blankets and enormous garment bags stuffed there by people sitting six rows back.
I sat next to a couple of belles who were evidently not frequent fliers. Not only were they actually paying close attention to the safety demo, but when encouraged to locate the exit nearest them, they actually pointed, in unison, to the door behind us. The elder of the two, sitting next to me, began fidgeting nervously well before takeoff. She peered into the seat pocket in front of her and then the one in front of her companion. "Oh good," she said, "there's one." She tugged out an air sickness bag and put it in her own pocket. I slumped against the window.
Though we hit a few potholes, we made it all right and my neighbor kept her peanuts. In Charlotte it was sunny and 65 degrees, but I didn't get outside. I just had time to take my luggage to the bathroom (one of the many joys of solo air travel) before grabbing a quick meal to take on the plane.
Here's a tip: Turbulence and cheese fries don't mix well. By the time we broke through the overcast and saw the twinkling strip-mall signs of Robinson, I was more than ready to walk the 3.4 miles to my car.
There's no place like home.
Samantha Bennett can be reached by e-mail at sbennett@post-gazette.com
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