Singin' The JetBlues

Had a little business in Fort Lauderdale last week. A one-day mediation for a client. I went down the day before, did a little reading by the hotel pool, and in the process, got myself a little tan, a little bronZATA. The mediation went well - we were able to settle a bad case that we didn't want to try. After 7 hours of negotiation, we had a deal, and it was time to get my ass back home to New York.

I'm not one for traveling in a suit, much less in 95 degree heat, so before heading to the airport, I changed into my shorts, flip flops, and t-shirt in the parking lot where we had the mediation, and then it was off to Fort Lauderdale Airport for my 6 p.m. flight. The time was 4:45 p.m. It was a leisurely drive to the airport, no traffic. By 5:30, I had checked in, gone through security, and was eating my Uno pizza-for-one while listening to my iPod. I even had time to read a little of the New York Times to get updated on the current shitstorm in the Middle East.

That's when, as they say, things began to go awry. As I chomped on my synthetic pizza, around 5:45, JetBlue announced that there was going to be an hour-and-a-half delay, and we would not be taking off until 7:30. Annoying, to say the least. Getting to the airport early and then having to wait over an hour to take off is no fun. "When in Rome, make lemonade," I thought to myself. I made a few phone calls, finished the paper, and before I knew it, we were boarding. After plopping myself into my seat and allowing for the interminable jostling and exchanging of seats with my rowmates, I tuned the seatback t.v. in front of me to CNN, plugged in my iPod headphones, and chilled out.

Around 8:00 p.m., a half hour after we were supposed to take off, the pilot came on the intercom to inform us that we would not be taking off until 8:30. "No biggie," I thought to myself, as I flipped through the channels and found "Miami Ink" on The Learning Channel. "There's plenty quality American programming for me to watch."

As an aside, "Miami Ink" is a pretty cool show. It's about a tattoo parlor in Miami, Florida and the people who work there. The interesting part is the interaction between the two owners and workers at the shop and the stories of the people who come in to get tattoos. A lot of the people want special tattoos to remember loved ones who have died or specific events in their lives. The show does a good job of telling you their background stories and their motivations for getting inked. The people aren't actors, and they are really sincere about why they want to permanently alter their bodies. It's fun to see people come in with their own idea for a tattoo and then watch the design come to life. Some people bring in pictures from magazines. Others have their own designs that they draw, or an idea in their head that they convey to the artist.

One clean-cut, middle-aged guy came in who had survived cancer. He brought with him several pictures of his young, adorable daughter, who must have been about six years old. In the photo that was ultimately chosen by the artist, the little girl was smiling broadly, like only an innocent child can. Her blue eyes were sparkling and her long, brown hair was kicking up wildly above her head, as if it were caught in a ball of static electricity. The father narrated that he wanted to celebrate life and his survival of cancer by having a picture of his daughter tattooed on his arm. The artist, who specialized in "portraits," did a great job reproducing the girl's image on the father's right bicep.

Another customer was a mother who was mourning the death of her two year-old son. She came in with her 8 year-old daughter and brought in a tiny pewter statue of an angel crying that she wanted reproduced on her lower back. The woman was very emotional and when the artist asked the little girl if she missed her brother, I was nearly moved to tears myself. The mother hoped that her new tattoo would help her through her sadness and allow her to carry some of her sorrow externally, rather than having to bear the entire burden in her mind and her heart. The tattoo artist drew a remarkably accurate picture of the little statue on this special stencil paper, applied the paper to her lower back, and then proceeded to trace the image with his tattoo gun. It came out great.

There were several moving stories like this. After seeing four episodes, I think I want a tattoo now.

Back to our story (unfortunately). After I had been sitting on the plane for an hour (and after having spent another hour in the terminal), our friendly pilot came on the intercom to announce that unfortunately, he had more bad news. Due to storms in New York, we were being held at the gate indefinitely, and we would not be taking off until 9:30 p.m., at the earliest. There were more than a few moans and groans. In fact, the woman seated next to me decided that she was getting the hell off the plane and going to a hotel. She took her carryon suitcase out of the overhead compartment and tramped to the front of the plane. "More room for me," I thought to myself, as I began gazing at my second episode of "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia." (A very funny show - give it your support, people.)

Then, an hour later, this bombshell: "Ah... This is Captain McCourt again. Ah... we've got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that we are the first in line to take off once we get the go-ahead. The bad news is we've been told that our takeoff time is not going to be until 12:45 a.m."

The entire airplane let out an angry, incredulous groan. "Are you fucking kidding me," I yelped semi-loudly. No, this was not a joke. I had three more hours of waiting ahead of me, after I had already endured three hours. All the "Miami Ink" in the world couldn't help me now. Not even some hot porn on my seatback t.v. would salvage this fucked up evening. I stood up and walked around a bit to ward off the leg thrombosis. Because we were still at the gate, the attendants allowed some people to get off the plane and go to the airport terminal to have some dinner. They also brought in some water for the passengers.

Like Hamlet, I pondered my options. Should I stay? That would mean more (increasingly unsatisfying) television in my uncomfortable airplane seat, and an arrival in New York at ugh, four in the morning. Not an appealing option. Should I go? That would mean giving up on this crappy little "adventure" and trying again tomorrow morning. By doing that, I would effectively be trading in one fucked up night and carrying it over into the next day. Not a great option either. My night was already shot to hell, so why go for a two-fer? I decided to ride it out with ESPN and David Letterman.

Mercifully, at 10:30, Captain McCourt came on the intercom with some friggin' good news for a change: we would be taking off at 11:00 p.m. Huzzah!!! Then, all of the passengers stood up and marched in a joyful conga-line up and down the aisle. Okay, that didn't happen. And we actually took off at 11:30.

A bag of peanuts, a club soda, and three hours of bad television later, I arrived in New York, safe and sound. Picked up my bag at 2:30 a.m., got into a cab at 3:00 (long line, of course), and was in my beddie-bye at 3:45 a.m. Just like clockwork.

The moral of the story is this: if it were not for the seatback televisions on the plane, there would have been complete anarchy on JetBlue flight 378. We would have rioted worse than in L.A. in 1992. Worse than the 1968 Democratic convention. They would have turned my story into a movie of the week. I would have been on Oprah talking about how I made it through the ordeal. How I survived the chaos.

Those little t.v.'s kept us calm, occupied, and I daresay hypnotized throughout the seven-hour delay. We were like little mice sucking on the water nozzle. Without those precious little televisions, we would have been sitting around bored, with nothing to do for hours except annoy each other and get seriously pissed off.

Don't believe me? Maybe you should talk to the guy in the row next to me, who berated the father of an autistic child because the kid had been kicking the man's chair and whooping uncontrollably from the second we got on the plane. "My son didn't ask to be autistic. You are very rude and you should apologize!" I thought there was going to be fisticuffs. A donneybrook, even. The poor, tired bastard didn't know the boy was autistic and apologized to avoid a scene. But things could have gotten U-G-L-Y. And we were without an alibi.

So, thank you JetBlue. Thank you for making my seven-hour stay on your airplane fun, entertaining, and chock-full of all the joy and happiness that only television can provide. Can't wait to do it again on my next trip to Florida.