God has a Sense of Humor

Warning: What you are going to read may be viewed as "culturally insensitive." I am not "culturally insenstive." I am merely reporting and reflecting on my experiences. If you are especially "culturally sensitive" or "politically correct" or "easily offended," I suggest that this be the time you stop reading.

Ok really. Don't read on.


You've been fairly warned.

So on my last night in Detroit, my friend Tammy and I went out. Against my better judgement, we ended up staying out until about 1:30 am. My plane to Vegas left Detroit at 7 am so that meant I had to be at the airport by at least 5:30, which meant I had to leave my house by 5 am which meant I had to be awake and alert by at least 4:45 am. Needless to say, that plan did not work well. I ended up running out of my house at 5:20 after a mere 3.5 hours of a deep and fitful sleep.

I figured I could sleep on the airplane.

The first leg of my flight took me from Detroit to a one hour layover in Cincinnati. I won't dwell on Cincy, but it does have the absolute homliest people in the United States.

I figured that after I left Cincy, I could sleep on the plane; that seemed reasonable because the flight from Cincy to Vegas was projected to be 3.5 hours. Perfect sleepin time.

I figured oh so wrong.

I strapped myself in, got snuggled under my coat, closed my eyes and listened to the calming purr of the airplane engine as we left Cincy. I thought I had lucked out because 2/3 of the flight was filled with deaf people doing sign language. Before closing my eyes, I looked admirably at the sign language whizzing past my eyes and wished I knew sign language. Life was good. My tired body relaxed; my eye lids were weighed down; I sighed and snuggled in the extra tiny faux leather Delta airline seat.

We were off. The plane was completely quiet, minus the calming purr of the engine.

Suddenly, I was jolted out of my restless slumber by a sound that was a cross between seals crying and cats mating--a high pitched loud, brassy sound that honestly frightened me. One of the deaf women--in the seat in front of me no less-- was laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing. The laughted lasted all 3.5 hours. There was absolutely no noise from the plane except from the deaf people. I got no sleep. None.

The man next to me opened one eye (as he was also trying to fall into restless plane slumber) and we eyeballed each other warily.

The ironies of life.

As my mom would say, "God has a sense of humor."

*M*