Free ticket to hell

** I have to go to Boston. I'm allergic to Boston. Because of its chaotic layout, noise and bad memories, there are only three or four people I'd actually try to connect with if I were forced to go there. One of them is George Kay, the intellectual dentist, inventor, world traveler and general bon vivant with whom I have spent many actually enjoyable hours when I lived there. (Also thousands of dollars and some pain.) It's choosing to let George do it that promises to make my Bosto-phobia all worthwhile.

And all because I have a free ticket on United.

How I came to have a free ticket on United is for another story, another time. Upshot for this entry is that I am betting this ticket on the skin of my teeth. Translation: there's a chance that George can resolve a dental issue that could cost me thousands if done in CA. I can also use the time between my Thursday appointment and my Tuesday departure to connect with that handful of people. But more deliciously, to hang out with my favorite daughter, Clare, who lives in Maine, a pleasant "Downeaster" train ride away.

So I've booked the redeye out of SFO, flight 180 scheduled to depart 11:50PM, arriving at 8:22 the next morning - non stop 5-hr trip. I hate cross country flights - and all airline travel actually – because of the security circus everywhere, the stockyard ambiance and the financial crises that have forced the carriers to downgrade the whole experience and openly not give a shit. But I've been blessed with an iPod that allows me to listen to audio books, and I had a couple that have engrossed me of late ("Pattern Recognition" and "Spook Country" by William Gibson). So in meticulous preparation for the ordeal I had loaded up the iPod with the books, made disc copies of the files, added some chatter-blocker white noise in case the crying baby (inevitable when I'm traveling) gets too distracting and I want to sleep.

13E was the seat assigned to me - a middle seat. The worst for a 5-hr night flight. So I decide to get to the airport waaay early - like around 8:15 – so I could get the seat changed. I even put in for a first class upgrade, using miles, in case coach was full.

Well, they don't allow seat changes until one hour before the flight. OK, I'll just go have a drink and call Dick to see how's he's recovering from his shoulder surgery. Did that. Got back to the departure lounge and pulled out the iPod to listen to the five hours I have left on "Pattern Recognition."

And that's when I realize I am in some kind of Kafka-MarxBrothers movie.

Clicking on "AudioBooks" on the iPod got me a completely blank screen. In fact, none of my music was there either, including the chatter-blocker. What the hell? After countless retries, reinstallations, re-syncings, re-everythings trying to get my life-saving audio back I place a call to audible.com. Kafka replies: "we're not going to help you because we're not open. "

I lose it. Call Joan to spoil her evening with a rant whose expletive-laced outbursts must be louder than I think because I notice several people in the lounge looking at me - some with sympathetic expressions, others with "oh crap, crazy man on board" looks.

Ticket agents appear at the desk. I'm first in line - my rant post. One tells me there are absolutely no aisle or window seats. Furthermore, they've changed the equipment and this plane is smaller than the one originally scheduled so now everything is oversubscribed. Nope, nothing in first class either - they're overbooked there by two and everyone has checked in.

I go back to my seat and fume silently for the next half hour. Boarding - last group of course. Plane jammed. Ahead of me is a family of 5. Two restless chattering little girls and a 7- or 8-month old babe in arms. I hear the mom deliver another Kafka line to one of the girls: "Honey just watch for row 13."

Joan had cautioned me to grab a blanket and pillow because planes can get cold overnight. So I arrive at lucky row 13 looking like a refugee – or someone checking into a prison cell. I have a blanket and TWO pillows in addition to my inflatable, all in my arms, with a heavy backpack in one hand. I can get into my middle seat because the aisle passenger hasn't arrived yet. But I've got this pile of blankets and pillows on my lap and no place to put anything. The blindfolded (why didn't I think of that?) MIT student on my right wants to sleep so that's OK - but I don't want to wake her by squirming around. And besides, there's really no place to put the pile. In addition, I've worn a t-shirt under a long-sleeved heavy shirt with two pockets, which I like to have handy when I travel so I can stuff iPods, cell phones, etc. And because Clare had said it would be "coolish" in Maine I am also wearing my Sleeping Bear Lake hooded parka. The only thing coming out of the overhead nozzle is ... breath. Weak, warmish breath. Like a failing convection oven.

Before I can figure out what to do with my pile, my aisle seat mate arrives. As she bends over to put her bag on the floor, water pours from the glass she's carrying - onto my left sleeve. Inwardly, I start to laugh - no I mean laff - a kind of maniacal mental paroxysm as it sinks in that I am totally screwed the rest of this trip.

Confirmation - and another laff riot - comes a few minutes later. The plane has been towed out to the taxi-way. As we sit there, the sound of a dog being whipped a dozen or so times tears up though the floorboards. ERRRROWWWWEEEE! Then silence. Then Kaptain Kafka again: "This is your captain. You may have noticed us trying to start the left engine. It won't start. So we're going to wait until they tow us back to the gate. You see, the engine is started with compressed air, using the same compressor that provides our air-conditioning. [TMI, and besides, what air conditioning?] We're going to detach that compressor and have an external emergency starter try to get the engine going. It'll be just a few more minutes."

Yeah, sure.

Actually it is. A few more whipped dogs and then the roar of the engine. The baby doesn't like it. But we're off. I decide to try to become very small in my seat - scrunch up and just see if I will doze off. Lean forward a bit - a good angle, propped on my lap-full of cloth.

BLAM!

Guy in seat ahead launches the back of it into my forehead.

Pathetic giggle.

Movie time. Little 9-inch flat screens drop down. They're showing "Shrek" tonight. Boring.

Lady on left squirming. I offer her one of my pillows. Gives me an idea. I offload the blanket by dropping it on the floor between my legs. Another layer gone.

I decide to set my watch to eastern time. But I don't want to turn on the overhead light for fear my two blindfolded seat-mates will awake. But the watch has a backlight. Three seconds to figure out what the other 3 buttons do. Ten minutes of that and I decide to go with the default Pacific time, plus or minus whatever changed while I fiddled with it.

By now the baby has mercifully settled down and I decide to try the on board audio system. I had remembered to bring my ear-muff headset with the big, pouffy cushions that will shut out ambient noises. Oh, and I've already plugged my ears with expanding foam. The only trouble with this system is that my ears sweat after a while, compounded by the airplane breath above me.

On United flights you get to listen to the radio transmissions going on in the cockpit on Channel 9. The captain has told us we could do that if we just wanted to relax. This is definitely not the relaxation channel. (Nothing much this time, but I'll never forget an earlier flight when I heard the word you don't want to hear on that channel: "OOPS!" Tower had instructed pilot to turn right at a certain intersection of taxi-ways. As he got there the pilot said, "You mean left, don't you?" Tower: "Oops, yeah.")

Everything else on the audio menu unappetizing, not what I want to hear when needing to become unconscious. Even the classical channel is "Pops!" Too up for this kind of flight. Also, the selections are too short, which gives the hyper DJ a chance to plug Sirius radio, this United channel and jabber from the liner notes of the recordings he's spinning. I unplug, and take off the headphones. It's kinda quiet at last. And a bit cooler, at least around my ears. I take out the orange foam plugs. Hmmmm...people, including baby ones, are asleep.

I am confined to staring straight ahead. And besides, if I had been interested in Shrek I couldn't see it no matter what I did. Though there is a screen above and just 2.5 feet in front of me, it's a LCD so the viewing angle turns everything dark and negative (not what the makers of Shrek had in mind, I'm sure). Normally, I could watch the screen three rows ahead, but the guy in front of me is about 8 feet tall, so his head comes between me and the screen. Which would be OK as long as he sits still. Which he does. But he's wearing outsize pouffy headphones, like mine, so his head is now effectively about a foot wide.

I've taken two melatonin but I'm still not sleepy. Must be all the excitement. Eventually, another hour drags by and another movie starts up. From the few opening scenes, this one looks interesting. I can't tell which movie it is because the titles are too small to read from ten feet away. But it stars Anthony Hopkins, appropriate companion on this flight. A murder mystery definitely. I don my headgear and tune to channel 1, the movie sound channel.

Enter, Franz Kafka, projectionist. No one on the flight crews seems to have noticed that the tape has been damaged so that not only does a horizontal line dribble slowly down the screen, but the sound track cuts out EVERY FIVE SECONDS. Not easy to follow dialog, you think? I jiggle the headphone plug but no change. I sneak onto my right seat mate's jack and change to channel 1. She stirs. Audio interruptus as before.

Some time later, seat-mate to the left gets up to pee. I take the opportunity to do the same - and exercise my legs. I hang around in the rear galley and start to do toe lifts and other calf stretches. A guy comes in with a baby bottle and asks to have it filled. So I have to get out of the way. After I come out of the can I saunter down the aisle (on therapeutic tiptoe) to my seat, where seat mate is standing waiting for me. Guy in front still has his seat reclined so it's one of those Twister moves to get re-installed into my cage. But at least I've been able to take off the goddam parka and shirt and wet down my head to get the momentary cooling effect of evaporation. Aisle seat sighs. I say: "It's not easy." She agrees and curls up with her/my extra pillow. She's a lot shorter than I so bends quite easily to put her head on the tray table - and the guy in front of her isn't taking target practice on her head.

Another hour goes by and something must have happened to my brain because I don't remember anything about it. I may have slept or blacked out with boredom. When I look out one of the windows on the other side of the plane I see creamsicle sky and know that we're heading into dawn.

Eventually, we land and we're only 15 minutes late. No problem because I've got nowhere to go yet. I head into the handicap stall of the men's room to change out of my sweat pants and t-shirt and put on something more suitable to be seen in in daylight. While I'm in the luxurious quarters of the handicap stall I think about the crazy night I've just had, when just about anything wrong that could happen has happened. I hear a noise outside the stall. I laff again and think: bring it on, baby! I just KNOW it's some guy in a wheelchair or crutches, rocking back and forth or side-to-side, waiting to get in – and give me the evil eye as I slink out. I never see anyone in these spacious stalls but I know this will be just another scene in my long nightmare. And though I know I'll never see him again, I still care - a little - but plan to avert my gaze as I drag my suitcase and backpack and criminal ass out of there. Surprise: no handicapped guy there. Just me playing Kafka.