The Southwest Party Plane- Vegas Version

My husband and I do not consider ourselves frequent fliers. I would say that I frequent an airplane about as much as I frequent my OBGYN- once a year and the experience does not usually make me swoon with excitement. Little did I know that when we booked the 7 am trip to Vegas out of Midway, we were in for the strangest mile high experience thus far in our short lives.

Has anyone flown Southwest lately? Apparently, they have what is known as an "open seating" policy which means as soon as you set foot on the plane, you knock down anyone in your path in order to score the best seats as close to the front of the plane as possible. I was confused when I boarded and the first thing I saw was a scared looking flight attendant cowered in a seat about midway up the aisle. I smiled tentatively at her and asked, "Do we just sit wherever we want?" to which she nodded at me and softly whispered, "Good luck." As the jostling ensued and we dodged people flinging their belongings into overhead compartments, we finally slid in to two seats at the VERY back of the plane by what John affectionately likes to call "the shitter." Perfect. Not five seconds later, an older African American lady who looked to weigh about 50 pounds slid in to the seat next to me which completed our back row.

As John and I were getting settled, we heard the commotion of what could only be a group of rowdy, Vegas-bound girls boarding the plane. By the way they were carrying on, you would have guessed that this group of girls was there for someone's 21st birthday or a skanky bachelorette party. As I peered over the seats to get a good look at the group, I was surprised to see that these were not girls but "ladies" of at least my age or older. And they were annoying as crap. They were all bent out of shape because they couldn't sit together. Word to the wise ladies- when you are flying on an airplane, you are NEVER going to get a group of 10 seats together. Unless your flying with P. Diddy. Then you better expect to either be putting out or signing up for the marketing team involved with his latest name change to get those seats. Either way, these women were NOT going to find ten seats together on this flight. As they complained loud enough for the whole plane to hear, our male flight attendant walked up to them and said with a laugh, "Just sit down." When they did not oblige, he said "Seriously, sit down. You'll be together at the end of the flight." Daaaang- I liked this guy already. When the group of women STILL could not find a place to sit, the testy flight attendant got on the loudspeaker and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this wonderful Southwest flight from Chicago to Las Vegas. The captain is all ready to depart, we are just waiting on YOU to find your seats so we can get moving." 200 heads immediately whipped around to glare at the group of misfit women still arguing over their seats which moved them along a tad faster. If we would have been smarter, the rest of us passengers would have rearranged ourselves to let them sit together so we wouldn't have to endure what came later.

Once everyone found their seats, the same male flight attendant (we'll call him Jeffrey) came to do a final check on our part of the plane. Jeffrey was an older gentleman in his late 50s wearing a Southwest airlines button down shirt and khaki cargo shorts. He was balding with glasses and had on a sweet pare of Nikes. I wondered if he had flown with Southwest so long that they started letting him wear whatever the hell he wants because the other flight attendants were all wearing the standard uniforms. Upon seeing Jeffrey, John leaned over to me and said, "Look, we have a male stewardess." Thank God Jeffrey didn't hear him say that. He probably would have peed in our Diet Cokes.

Our row of three checked out OK with Jeffrey but upon further inspecting the row in front of me, he took issue with the African American gentleman in front of me who was apparently traveling with a cane. He very nicely asked him to stow his cane in the overhead compartment until the end of the flight. To which the gentleman replied, "No, I have to have my cane." Poor Jeffrey had to argue with the man for a good five minutes before the man finally agreed to let the man next to him (whom he did not know) hold on to it for him only AFTER the woman sitting next to me (who must have been his wife) slapped the back of his seat and said "Shut it, Harold!" I feel bad for the man sitting next to Harold who was then the appointed cane bitch for the rest of the flight. If only Southwest would assign seats, then that man's WIFE would have been able to hold his cane. I'm just sayin'.

We FINALLY found ourselves in the air and on the way to Vegas a short while later. The first part of the flight was pretty uneventful, but that was only because the captain had not turned off the seatbelt sign yet. As soon as that seatbelt sign turned off, all hell broke loose. Not in a terrorists-taking-over-the-plane type of way, but more in a daddy-said-we-could-leave-our-seat-and-so-we're-never-sitting-back-down-again sort of way. Poor Jeffrey and his crew had to weave through people to give out snacks and drinks because about three different groups of people were just hanging out in the aisles. Jeffrey finally approached our group to get our drink orders and before he could get to us, Cane Man in front of me snagged his arm and demanded an apple juice. Jeffrey kindly explained to Cane Man that it wasn't his turn, but Cane Man wouldn't listen. Jeffrey finally told him to hold his horses, took the next group's orders, then returned to Cane Man's row. When he finally looked at Cane Man and asked, "Now sir, what can I get you?" Cane Man replied, "Nothing." Buuuuuurn. Jeffrey brought Cane Man an apple juice anyway.

Much to no one's surprise, one of the groups taking up the aisles was the same group of women who couldn't find seats and delayed our takeoff. They were spread out between the last six rows of the plane. Unfortunately, the loudest in the group decided that she didn't need to leave her seat, she would just yell her conversations loud enough for her scattered friends to hear her, as well as everyone flying within 50 miles of us. I am going to call this girls "Breast Pump" because that was all she talked about. May I remind you that at no point did this woman talk to me, but I learned that she has an 11 month old baby who was staying with her parents during the day and her "poor" husband at night. This lady also had to pump every four hours or she would "dry up." Breast Pump further assured everyone within 9 rows of her that she would be dumping her milk since she drank like a sailor all through our 4 hour flight. There was a point in our flight that we were going over the mountains and hit some bumps that Breast Pump literally yelled out "TURBULENCE" and ducked under her seat. This lady had to have been at least 33 or 34 years old.

As I watched (and tried not to listen to all of this unfold), I noticed that there were other similar groups around our plane. Not far up from Breast Pump's group was a group of five guys all holding drinks and standing in the aisles checking out any girl that walked by. Like they were in a club. I mean, I understand that a 4 hour plane ride is the perfect place to pick up girls- you strike up a conversation, figure out where she is staying, and if you want to hook up with her later on in the trip, great- if not, you never have to see her again. Unless she is on your return flight- it's a chance you just have to take. To see this stuff in action was a little bit mind boggling.

There FINALLY came a time when the captain turned on the fasten seatbelt sign again and everyone was mercifully directed to their seats. This also meant that Breast Pump couldn't order another bloody mary which meant that she was able to pass out and leave us in peace for the remainder of the flight. Aside from the lady snoring beside me, the rest of the flight to Vegas went off without a hitch.

As we approached the airport, the captain welcomed us to Las Vegas to which their were resounding cheers and applause from Breast Pump and her group. As we taxied into the gate, I realized that all of this nonsense had occurred in the wee hours of the morning and it was only 9:00 am Vegas time. We had a long day ahead of us.

The flight there was a great setup to our awesome time in Vegas. I have to say that although Southwest's open seating policy isn't my favorite thing in the world, I feel like Jeffrey and the rest of the staff are the perfect fit for what has to be endured on that airline. I recommend the Southwest Party Plane to anyone- just leave your breast pump at home.

My Epic Summer...Thus Far

So, as anyone who is following this blog (or was following this blog) can see, I haven't posted in awhile. Long story short, school kicked my butt at the end of the year and left me never wanting to formulate a coherent thought for the rest of my life. Once I came out of my school-induced coma, I hit the road for a nice little tour of the semi-midwest. In the past three weeks, I have done the following:

1. Participated in my mother's Relay for Life at Prairie Heights High School
2. Celebrated my grandfather's birthday with gut loads of pizza and ice cream
3. Seen a devastating Cubs game and survived a monsoon in the process
4. Attended my first DMB concert
5. Became Tina's B*tch at her campground behind the DMB concert- it wasn't as bad as one might think
6. Survived 4 days in Chicago with my aunts who range from conservative mennonite to completely awesome
7. Attended my cousin's Miss Indiana's Outstanding Teen Pageant
8. Rocked out at a totally beautiful wedding reception
9. Spent 8 hours in a movie theater next to the most annoying girl on the planet taking in the complete Twilight Saga
10. Spent time with my awesome family while my brother was home

As you can see, I have been quite busy and have been traveling more than I have been sitting by a computer. This blog is a catch-all for some of these events that are worth mentioning and will hopefully be followed by more frequent posts.

As any of my friends can tell you, my date book is pretty packed during the summer. Summers are reserved for spending quality time with my family and close friends that I don't see very much, and the Terrys log plenty of traveling miles. One of my favorite events of the summer thus far was traveling to Indy to take in my first ever Dave Matthews concert. My great friends Annie and Frank have an equally great group of friends that makes a weekend camping trip out of the DMB experience and John and I along with our friends Carrie and Rob decided to invite ourselves right along to enjoy the fun. Boy am I happy that we did! We had a blast! I will be the first to tell you that I am not exactly the camping type of girl. I can do it when needed, but I definitely don't strap on my tent and fishing pole every weekend to rough it with nature. For this special occasion, I thought it was worth a shot.

John and I arrived at the "campground" around 2:00 on the day of the concert. I use the term campground loosely because it was really just a bunch of tents set up on the land of some people who also happened to own horses and goats. They charged $10 a person and furnished four port-a-potties, so it definitely suited our needs. The campground happened to be owned by "Tina" whom I never had the pleasure of actually meeting, but decided that she was pretty awesome after being on her grounds for a night. Once our tents were assembled, we had to go find one of the "security" people (which were really Tina's redneck relatives wearing orange reflector vests and freely screaming at whomever they desired) in order to pay for our spot of land for the evening. The particular security gentleman that we ran into happened to be Tina's husband who hungrily took our money and strapped us with bracelets that read "Tina's Bitch" in black sharpie. Classy. He informed us that Tina was his wife and we were all her bitches. I was going to ask what that entailed but decided to keep my mouth shut and pray that Tina didn't come knocking on our tent for any reason during our luxurious stay.

Once we were paid up, we settled in to the camping circle with drinks and snacks. We were packed in very tight and I really couldn't tell where our group of friends ended and the next began. Dave makes people real friendly, I guess. Just as we started relaxing, I smelled a curious odor and immediately told John that it smelled like a skunk had wandered into the area and that I hoped that he didn't stick around all night. John promptly informed me that there was no skunk, people in the next circle were smoking pot. Huh. I guess that goes to show that I listened during sixth grade DARE and have never touched the stuff. Officer Russell would be proud.

The rest of the camping experience was pretty uneventful and super fun. Dave was awesome and I fully enjoyed my first experience. I only hope that there are more to come in the future and that I will get the hang of the whole camping thing by the next excursion. If I do decide to camp again, I can only hope that we will utilize Tina's facilities. Not only were the accommodations questionable, Tina herself moved cars with a forklift that were not parked correctly and placed them in the horse pasture. I feel bad for the owner of the white Saab covered in horse crap, but as Tina said, he shouldn't have F'in parked there. Who needs a concert when you have that kind of entertainment?

The rest of my summer details will have to wait...I can only think straight for short spurts of time in the summer and this is all I can do for tonight. John and I are headed to Vegas on Thursday to celebrate our second anniversary and I am sure there will be much to report once we return. Until then, if you see Tina, tell her I miss her...and her mad forklift skills.