Arm doors and cross ch... bugger

Hi there. I know it’s been a while and I am sure you have all been pining for an update from me. 10 days I can write off to recovering from my trip back from Chicago, which I will go into more detail about in this post. The other missing days – well, no excuse really, except the usual run down to Christmas crazy that hits around this time every year. Anyway, my trip home…

The conference was great and I had a great last day in Chicago, visiting the Field Museum and wandering around like a tourist, gawking at dinosaur bones, Egyptian mummies and small children bored out of their brains by the cultural experience they were being forced to appreciate by their parents. There are just some things kids don’t get – nice scenery, a beautiful piece of music (I am not counting Hi 5 or the Wiggles compositions in this) or the fact that looking at objects from our past are interesting. I don’t blame them – I do not appreciate the wonder of Leggo when you step on it in bare feet at 5am in the morning, the beauty of the patterns spaghetti and tomato sauce can make on the floor or the wonderful symmetry of the rips that mysteriously appear in clothes only 2 hours old. There are just some differences that are not meant to be bridged.

Getting home turned out to be an extended journey. Arrived in plenty of time at O’Hare to check in and be strip searched by security to make sure I was not carrying a knife, gun, plastic explosives or a thanksgiving turkey. One guy behind me in the line was found to be carrying a knife (d’oh) and was promptly jumped on by 1000 security guards and whisked off for a close encounter with a rubber glove. One thing I will say about O’Hare airport – it is farking HUGE and when they say leave time to walk to your departure gate, they aren’t joking or mean just a brisk 5 minute stroll. In my case it was close to 1km away from where I walked through security, but I ambled down there with time to spare. We were loaded onto the plane in due course and, as I was up the back of the plane, I got to get on first-ish. 5 minutes after I had settled in my seat, I noticed the air was kind of stuffy and warm, but wasn’t too bothered. 25 minutes later, we were all on board and the temperature in the cabin was getting pretty warm. 10 minutes after that, most of us were starting to sweat a bit and the pilot came on to let us know they were aware that the air conditioning had broken down. However, as soon as he could turn the engines on, the plane’s system would take over. Apparently we were delayed because they could not locate a passenger or their bags – not too clear which was causing the problem. Some more time passed and after a while it felt like I was having a sauna with 250 of my new best friends. People were taking it pretty well (there were a few mumbles, but it wasn’t like people were freaking out and slamming their heads on the floor or anything). Suddenly, there was a loud bang, followed a by a noise that I can best describe as “fwump” and an alarm going off. I had a look out of the window and bugger me, there appeared to be a large emergency slide inflating next to the side of the plane! It was pretty cool (the fact that the plane could be about to blow up or combust etc seemed to escape my mind) to see one in real life, as all other emergency slides I had seen were in those thrilling “how to kiss your arse goodbye” videos you get to watch when your flight starts. I started getting my stuff together when I saw no less than 10 guys (all wearing supervisor type clothes) gather around the slide, which had fully inflated and then detached itself from the plane. The guy in the seat next to me asked what I was doing, so I drew his attention to the giant slip and slide that was lying on the tarmac. He then went on to say “well, they’ll just deflate it and put it back in won’t they? Won’t take long”. I told him that these slides were a lot like airbags in a car – once inflated, that was pretty much that. Sure enough, we were all asked to get our crap from various lockers etc and depart the plane. On the plus side, it was fairly obvious the back door of the plane was now open, as there was a gentle, cool breeze wafting around the back of the plane. Better than what was wafting around in the departure lounge, which can best be described as lots of cranky pants passengers coming up against the most crap customer service I have seen in a long while. I could go into a lot of detail here, but let it just be said that the lack of help and support you got from the American Airlines staff made me think they had been to the Basil Fawlty school of customer relations. To cut to the chase, it became fairly bloody obvious I was going to miss my international connection and more than likely have to spend the night in LA. Tempers were running pretty high (not mine. I toddled off, got myself a drink and some dinner and just settled in to watch the drama unfolding in front of me) and may I take my hat of to some of my fellow passengers – the shouting, language (I am well aware I can swear like a trooper, but damn, this left me for dead) and banging on desks etc would do my 3 year old proud in the tantrum stakes. After a while, things had obviously calmed down too much for somebody’s liking, as a chappie who was obviously a supervisor came out to make an announcement over the PA. Initially he got my attention because he looked and sounded EXCATLY like Dr Phil, but I was riveted once he started talking. He proceeded to deliver a little talk to us about how long airline repairs can take etc and that we had to accept some responsibility for the situation we had found ourselves in. The silence after this little announcement was profound. Ignoring the very obvious warning signs, he went on to lecture that if we had been more considerate as passengers and not complained so much about the conditions on the plane, the crew would not have felt “compelled to open the rear door to let in cool air, activating the emergency slide”. I have to admit I nearly collapsed on the floor with laughter, as the whole situation really had reached the completely insane level. I was in the minority though and one guy was so enraged by this statement that he launched himself across the departure gate lounge with (I think) the sole intention of choking “Dr Phil” to death with the PA cord. He was intercepted by security and “calmed down”. I do have to say, at least I now had a mystery of air travel cleared up – you know when you are about to take off they say “arm doors and cross check”. Well, the arming of the doors is moving a lever so that if the door needs to be opened in an emergency, the doors are “armed” to activate the emergency slide. This means anyone can open the door, not just air crew. To disarm the door, it is the highly technical process of moving the lever back again. Obviously one of the staff on our crew missed that lesson at “how to work on a plane” school.

Eventually, we got into LA, where Qantas took over from American “do I look like I care” Airlines. They had managed to get us onto flights home and in the end, I got into Sydney only 5 hours later than I was meant to. Very efficient. Have to admit I kept a keen eye on the chap who was in charge of arming and cross checking to doors, but he seemed to have it all under control. No sign of escape slides, broken air conditioning or TV psychologists all the way home. Phew.