Bumpy Ride

So this past weekend I headed home to go back to my alma mater to recruit new talent for my company. Since my daughter is under two she flys free on my lap. This is in fact the second trip we have taken together, just the two of us. She is actually an excellent traveller since she is too young to really know when things start to go to hell on us. This was no more reinforced then during this past trip on our return flight to Omaha.

Before leaving on Sunday there was a wind advisory warning that flashed along the bottom of my mom's TV that said strong wind with gusts up to 40 mph and applied to the states of Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and Nebraska (or at least those are the ones I could remember.) Now the first leg of our flights was quite bouncey but I counted myself lucky that nothing major happened. It was definately on the bumpy side but I did not completely lose it.

**Sidebar... for those of you who do not know I hate to fly. More specifically I hate take-offs, landings, and turbulence.. so as you can imagine a wind advisory on a day that I am flying is like one of my worst nightmares.

So on with the story. So my daughter and I are in Minneapolis and surprisingly everything is running on time. So we boarded and go settled in. A nice looking older gentleman (I'm talking 50's/early 60's) sat down next to me. Not too talkative but plesant idle conversation. We took off and although there were some sways and dips nothing too dramatic. So yada yada, we flew... and now starts the decent where the pilot warns us that it is going to be pretty bumpy since they had current gusts up to 35 mph. Now previously my daughter was awake and beginning to fuss a little but when you hold her really tight she almost instantly falls asleep. Well needless to say the tight hold started and she fell comotose.

The plane started to really rock side to side and drop and rise in a pretty sharp fashion. Tom who informed me he flys a few times a week seemed unphased as I spiraled into a deeper state of panic. I started to rest my head on my daughters head and recited the Lord's Prayer on repeat. I was saying it pretty low but Tom may have heard. As we got closer to the ground the dips and sways became more frequent so much more frequent that I kept saying louder and louder "Ohhh goodness!" "OH MY GOODNESS!" ... again on repeat. I even told Tom at one point that probably legally I shouldn't be allowed to hold a child on a flight since it seemed I just kept tightening my grip on her. Tom seemed to roll with these facts and I think began to observe just how much my hysteria was coming to the surface. During all of this I decided that if I was going to die I might as well introduce myself to the guy sitting next to me. So I told him out of the blue my name was Allison and he responded with his name was Tom. Shortly after the girl behind me said something to the refrence that she might get sick if we didn't land soon. Not good. Fortunately she did not but that can kind of display to you how bad this was.

When we had almost landed.. keep in mind... still reciting the Lord's prayer with interuppted "Ohhh Goodness!!!" We hit an especially rough patch. Out of a knee jerk reaction I took one of my hands out from under my daughters butt and clung for dear life onto Tom. Poor Tom. He really had no other choice. I told him I was sorry for having to cling to him but I really needed to. Kind ole' Tom said that was alright, but really he had no choice as the histerical mother next to him had a death grip on his arm. After we landed Tom told me that really wasn't that bad as I unwrapped myself from him completely shaking all over. I thanked him for being such a great sport through it all and he told me I was welcome.

I noticed Tom at the baggage claim a pretty safe distance away from the two of us. One by one everyone on the plane grabbed their bag off the carousel and departed off to their rides. Finally the carousel stopped circling, the buzzer quieted and who were left standing without our belongings in our hands? You got it! Tom and I!