As some of you may remember from my earlier blog entries (‘Air Mishap #’s 1 through 5’, dated 8/16/11 through 2/17/12) for better or for worse I have my pilots license and have had a few ‘incidents’ in the air. Although all of those incidents that I wrote about happened while I was piloting the plane, a recent incident I had while flying with the good people of AirTran got me thinking about other incidents in the air while flying commercial. I will tell you about a couple of them…mishap #6 in this blog entry and #7 in a future entry.
Air Mishap #6 occurred on a Monday morning, May 4th, 1998. My girlfriend at the time Mugsy and I had just seen our favorite band the Radiators five nights in a row in New Orleans, as we were down there for the great annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. We saw the Radiators three nights at Tipitinas, then Saturday night at the House Of Blues, and then finally in their traditional Sunday evening spot closing out Jazzfest on the Polaroid Stage. As I learned over the years, Jazzfest is a marathon not a sprint. The tendency when you get down there all excited for the festivities is to hit it hard right out of the gate, but you have to pace yourself. After years of practice I had settled into the following routine: Wake up at 11am and head to the Jazzfest fairgrounds for a day’s worth of incredible local and national musical acts on the dozen or so stages scattered around the racetrack while drinking tons of water and stuffing myself silly with local fare from the hundreds of awesome food booths. Deep breath. Head back to the hotel at 7pm. Sleep till 10pm. Then head out for the nighttime activities which consists of more incredible music at all of the clubs around town. Get back to the hotel at 6am. Sleep till 11am. Repeat.
So Mugsy and I had run the musical gauntlet and survived a week in New Orleans. It was time to drag our wearing bones on to our Northwest Airlines flight and head back home to Minneapolis on the other end of the Mississippi River. We got up Monday morning, took a cab from our hotel to the airport, and we were running late so we pulled an O.J running through the airport. Remember when “pulling an O.J.” meant running through the airport jumping over people’s luggage trying to make your plane? “Go O.J. go!” Now it means to viciously murder someone. Ahh how times change. Anyways, we had not had time for anything to eat so on the way to our gate we quickly stepped in to a magazine store and grabbed a Nestle Crunch candy bar. Our flight was already boarding when we got there so we jumped in line and made our way to our seats.
We were on the left side of the plane, halfway back, in seats A & B with the aisle next to us. I had the window seat and Mugsy the aisle seat. Mugsy peeled open the wrapper on the Nestle Crunch bar and placed it on the armrest between us. It was already broken into a bunch of small pieces. As the plane taxied to the runway we watched the flight attendant explain to us where the exits were and how our seat belts worked while we took turns reaching down and grabbing chunks of the candy bar. Eventually we were cleared for takeoff and started to accelerate down the runway. I was intently watching out the window and munching on a bite of the candy when suddenly I felt Mugsy violently jabbing my arm.
“What the hell?!” I said, and turned around to see her muffling a scream with one hand and pointing down to the Nestle bar with the other. I looked down at the chocolate and wrapper. The two of us had eaten most of the candy bar, but what was left was writhing with half-inch long white maggots. My stomach flipped in revulsion, first at the sight of the maggots and then at the realization that we had probably eaten a bunch of them along with the chocolate. Come to think of it, it did taste a little funny but neither of us had noticed at the time as our attention was elsewhere while we were eating the chunks.
The plane was just lifting off and Mugsy quickly unbuckled her belt with no problems, thanks no doubt to the thorough instructions she had just received from the stewardess. With one hand still over her mouth trying to hold back the puke, she began running down the aisle heading for the bathroom in the back of the plane. She got about halfway there when a stewardess stood up and loudly yelled: “Miss! You have to take your seat!!” Everyone in the back half of the plane was staring at her but Mugsy kept on running for the bathroom. She almost got there when the stewardess intercepted her, blocking the aisle and demanding she go back to her seat. Mugsy shouted: “You have a choice! I’m either going to puke on you or in the bathroom!” The stewardess quickly stepped aside and Mugsy made it just in time, puking her guts out in the toilet.
While this bit of drama was going on I grabbed the pile of wrapper, chocolate and maggots and rolled it all up into a ball and stuffed it into a barf bag. I too felt a bit queasy but managed to keep everything down. The stewardess ran to my seat asking what the hell was going on and I thrust the barf bag at her and told her to throw it out. She grabbed it and I explained that it was full of maggots, and then she looked like she was going to puke. Mugsy came back after a bit, pale and shaken and we sat there trying not to think about the maggots. The rest of the flight though I kept picturing myself reaching down, grabbing a maggoty chunk of chocolate, placing it in my mouth, slowly chewing the chocolate and maggots into mush, and then with a swallow introducing them to their grave that was my stomach.
If any of you know Mugsy, you know that she was not one to take things quietly and rationally. When we got home she wanted to call the newspapers, the TV stations, the President of the United States if need be and demand justice. She wanted to sue Nestle for hundreds of millions of dollars for emotional damage. Irreparable pain and suffering. I thought it was kind of cool that we had eaten maggots and lived, but Mugsy was out for blood. So I called Nestle and tried to explain what it was like living with an angered Mugsy. Living with a happy Mugsy was hard enough but the alternative was a very hard cross to bear.
After many phone calls and hours of being on hold and days of negotiating with them, we finally came to an agreement whereby they would refund us the cost of our airplane tickets. It was not hundreds of millions of dollars, but I got Mugsy to agree to the $250 that we would each get. Even though I had paid for both tickets, I gave her $250 out of the $500 that we received from Nestle so she could have some semblance of satisfaction. I was amazed that we received even a dime, so I was more than happy to get $250 out of the deal. I would eat a pile of maggots for $250 any day. On that note, lesson learned: always look before you eat.
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