This is BULLshit

I made it to the Winter Wonderland.

My flight from Florida to Detroit was uneventful, other than some slight turbulance as we started to cross over the snowy states. (It was only after being dropped off at the Ft Myers airport that I realized I had forgotten my damn jacket at home, so I called Mom and requested that she meet me with one in Grand Rapids.)

The flight to GR was a little more complicated. First, my flight out of Detroit was delayed due to weather. It was only an hour or so, so it wasn't a huge deal. We finally get on the plane, where I was met with 2 very pleasant surprises: one, I had an exit row seat, which gives you almost as much space as first class; and two, my seat mate was a very single, very handsome lawyer from Tampa. Holla! He was so funny, too. I never got his name, though, so for the purposes of this post, he shall be referred to as New Boyfriend. Anyway, the flight attendant came to speak to those of us in the exit row prior to take off. She talked to those on the other side of the aisle first, asking if they understood the responsibilties of an exit row seat, giving brief instructions for what they would have to do in case of an emergency, etc. Then she turned to New Boyfriend and I.

"Are you aware that you're in an exit row seat?" she pleasantly asked.

"We sure are," New Boyfriend replied. (Awwww...we were already a "we." No commitment issues HERE.)

"And you're willing and able to assist other passengers in case of an emergency?" she followed up.

I fielded this one. "We sure are," I said.

"Great," she said, and moved on.

New Boyfriend turned to me with a slightly perturbed look on his face. "Wait," he said. "That's all we get? Doesn't it seem like the other side got WAY more information than we did?"

"Maybe we just look more capable," I suggested. "And we're a lawyer and a teacher. We can figure it out."

"Yeah," he agreed. "Plus, I've seen it done in the movies a bunch of time. Doesn't look too hard."

We nodded and sat back, secure in our In Case of Emergency Capabilities.

So anyway, we finally start to back away from the gate and taxi towards the runway--for about 20 seconds. Suddenly, the plane stops and the engines turn off.

"Ladies and gentleman, this is your pilot," comes the announcement. "Unfortunately, during our prepping and loading of passengers, we seem to have gathered a bit of ice on our wings. As a result, we have to bring out the de-icing equipment. The plane needs to be turned off for this process, but we will be on our way shortly." He also said that something was going on UNDER the wings, as well, so the crews would be working down there at the same time, but I can't remember the words he used or exactly what the issue was.

I don't know if you've ever seen a plane de-iced, but NB and I got a front-row view of it. A guy in a big cherry-picking cart thing aims a huge hose at the plane, and what looks like tons of steam shoots out. (NB and I cleverly nicknamed it "Ice Fighting" instead of "Fire Fighting.") It was pretty cool.

So finally, we start to taxi for real. It was actually kind of scary to take off on a snowy and icy runway; I gripped my arm rests and temporarily stopped talking (NB looked on amusedly--"Oh, is this the part where you freak out? Cool, cool. Let me know when you're done. I'll be here reading this scintillating Sky Mall magazine. If you need a marshmallow launcher, I'm your guy. I'll just be over here." Once we leveled off in the sky, I returned to normal: "So what was that about a marshmallow launcher?"--and the convo was back on.)

The flight was actually pretty damn bumpy--luckily, it's also a very short flight (half an hour, including take off and landing, so about 20 minutes of actual flying) and I had NB to distract me. When it was time to land, I gripped the arm rests again (as an added bonus, we had the wind gusts to contend with this time) but I was able to keep up the conversation, at least.

So...that was my journey. As we exited the airport, I uttered the line that is now the title of this post. Seriously, y'all, it's freakin' COLD. I think we need to switch the family Christmas to July or some shit. Anyway, we got home probably around 11 or 11:30. The storm continued all night and now we have even MORE snow on top of the 10 feet or so that was already covering the frozen tundra.

Don't think I'm going anywhere today because the roads are pretty bad, but hopefully I'll get to see the kids and sisters here pretty soon.

I miss Florida.

I'll post some phone pics soon.