Last week, Thad Gray, Lloyd Friedman, and Tommy Dupree joined me for the annual Arkansas Congressional Delegation Salute in Washington D. C.  I have lots to tell about all the people we saw and the things we learned, but the fun part of the story was in the goings and comings.

On Saturday, the four of us left the Chamber building at 1:30 p.m. headed for the airport.  The plane was supposed to leave Little Rock at 3:05 and arrive in DC at 8:10, but the flight was delayed and delayed and delayed.  Finally, about 4:30,  they announced that all was well, and we boarded.  We were half way to Cincinnati when the pilot announced that the plane was having a minor electrical problem, and he decided to go back to Little Rock.  Fortunately, we did have a safe landing back in Little Rock about 5:30.  Later we heard that first one generator went out and then another.  Somebody else heard the GPS (Global Positioning System) was not working.  Whatever the problem, the pilot was not comfortable with it, and we were back where we started.

But then we had a full plane-load of passengers trying to get from here to there and back again.  The ticket counters were jammed, and people were scrambling, trying to make connections.  Being at the end of the line, we were among those who did not make all our connections.  By 11:30 p.m., we had made it as far as Cincinnati where we spent the night and waited until Sunday morning to complete our journey to Washington.

When we had completed all our activities in Washington, we arrived at the newly renamed Ronald Reagan National Airport in plenty of time for our 8 p.m. flight.  Unfortunately, we soon learned that all flights to Atlanta were being delayed because of weather there.  We cleverly switched planes to a flight that would have a brief stop-over in Atlanta and then continue on to Little Rock.  But even that plane was an hour and a half late leaving Washington.

Near Atlanta, we were placed in a holding pattern for thirty minutes or more before landing.  Then, just as we landed, the stewardess announced “an equipment change.”  They had decided to service our airplane which would require us to change planes after all.  She said we would need to go to gate B-15.  Skeptics that we were, we stopped at the friendly airline representative greeting the deplaning passengers to double check our signals.  Well, she explained that our plane at gate B-15 had just left, and that it was the last flight to Little Rock.  We would have to stay the night in Atlanta.  It was one of those times when you either cried or laughed and the giggles got the best of us.  We laughed all the way to the Atlanta Sheraton Gateway saying, “What else could possibly go wrong?”

By Wednesday morning, none of us were laughing.  We were tired and ready to be home.  Even missing a day of work wasn’t enough to offset the inconvenience.  For our discounted $181 tickets, the airline had now spent $240 each on us in motel and food costs.  But this flight was on time, and at last we were actually on our way home.  Surely nothing could go wrong now.

About half way to Little Rock, the pilot announced that the air traffic controllers had informed him of some turbulence ahead, so he asked the flight attendants to quit serving drinks and be seated.

Fortunately, I had my tomato juice (without ice) and peanuts already.  Unfortunately, I had just filled my cup with juice.  So when the turbulence began I quickly calculated the best way to avoid a spill.  I figured the cup would surely spill if I tried to hold it on the bouncing tray table.  So I carefully suspended the cup in the air trying to ease through the bumps.  When the plane dropped at just the right speed, we were weightless and my arm bobbled around keeping up with the cup.

So far so good, but then we hit a very sudden drop, and a lot of things happened in a split second.  When the airplane dropped, it was as if a string were tied to my hand and someone yanked it straight up.  What a strange feeling!  I guess the “string” was actually the inertia, which was effectively working like reverse gravity.  When the plane went down, my hand shot upward.

Of course, the cup which was FULL of tomato juice also went up.  Miraculously, I managed to keep from spilling the juice over the side on the way up, but when my arm was almost to full extension the cup hit the ceiling.

When the cup stopped, the juice kept going.  It splashed upward on the ceiling much like it would have in normal gravity if I had turned the cup upside down on the floor.  While we continued to descend, the red juice escaped the cup and spread over the ceiling until most of it was poised directly over my head.

Suddenly we reached the bottom of the air trough.  At that point the plane leveled out, and we enjoyed a return to normal gravity.  But now the juice, which was still racing over the ceiling, also enjoyed this sudden spat of gravity.

I never realized just how much tomato juice an airplane cup holds.  It doesn’t seem like much when it politely sits in the cup on the tray table, but when it descends like rain in a thunderstorm and spills and spreads, it covers an amazing area.  Some of the juice splashed at least six other people seated nearby, but most of it fell on me.  There I sat with bright red tomato juice running down my bald head, dripping off my face and onto my glasses, my camera, and my coat.

As soon as this split second was over, (I told you that a lot happened in that split second.) the surrounding passengers were stunned by what appeared to be the explosion of a tomato hand-grenade in the cabin.  They stared in awe at the huge red blob which was still dripping from the ceiling above me. That’s when Thad and Lloyd starting giggling… uncontrollably.  This trip had just crossed the invisible barrier from inconvenient to ridiculous, and they could no longer contain their laughter.  Suddenly the whole plane joined them, bursting into raucous laughter.

Finally, sympathy prevailed and every passenger within a six row area passed their tiny drink napkins my way.  It took all of them to mop up the mess and clean my glasses and camera.  I got most of it off the ceiling, but left just enough so that the next passenger who sits in that seat will look up and mistake the dried tomato juice for my blood and wonder about the airplane trip from hell.