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Maryville, MO —
Author’s note: This is the last of four parts.
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I’ve always liked airplane travel. The rush of the engines, the force of the liftoff, the clouds below me stretching like the world was covered in cotton. I first flew when I was about 12, and it was magical.
Flashback
On my maiden flight in the late 1970s from Kansas City to Washington, D.C., from my window I noticed the airliner followed the Missouri River. Living on a farm a half-mile from the river, I started to see familiar bends, landmarks, roads, and buildings to the point I said out loud, “Hey, I can see my house from here.”
And I could. It sat squat and white in a sea of spring wheat fields, my older sisters quite possibly at that moment underneath its slate-gray roof as my parents drove home from the airport. The guy in the aisle seat looked at me like I was an idiot, which I so wasn’t.
Apparently a lot has changed since then.
Today
According to my original itinerary, the one where I arrived in Texas two days before to watch my oldest daughter graduate from college, not the one I followed now which in my mind is written in crayon, at this time of the morning I should be somewhere over Oklahoma.
I wasn’t over Oklahoma. My crayon itinerary, the one where I missed my flight in Austin, now had me on a trajectory over Texas, Oklahoma, a smidgen of New Mexico, and finally Colorado, where I would land in Denver and try to find a way home to Kansas City that may, or may not, involve hitchhiking with a traveling carnival.
Sitting in my seat, stewing in a thick steam of stupidity, I didn’t notice the flight attendant standing next to me.
“Nuts?” she asked.
Why, yes, I think I am.
I nodded and she handed me a small blue foil packet that probably held more foil than peanuts. The front of the bag read “Lightly Salted Nuts.” This actually surprised me. With the PR campaign to alert the world of people with peanut allergies (something nobody cared about when I was a kid, either because the allergy wasn’t as prevalent, or there weren’t as many lawyers), I wondered why airlines were still allowed to carry them.
Maybe like Velveeta’s claims of cheese, this bag of peanuts didn’t actually contain peanuts.
Author’s note: This is the last of four parts.
---
I’ve always liked airplane travel. The rush of the engines, the force of the liftoff, the clouds below me stretching like the world was covered in cotton. I first flew when I was about 12, and it was magical.
Flashback
On my maiden flight in the late 1970s from Kansas City to Washington, D.C., from my window I noticed the airliner followed the Missouri River. Living on a farm a half-mile from the river, I started to see familiar bends, landmarks, roads, and buildings to the point I said out loud, “Hey, I can see my house from here.”
And I could. It sat squat and white in a sea of spring wheat fields, my older sisters quite possibly at that moment underneath its slate-gray roof as my parents drove home from the airport. The guy in the aisle seat looked at me like I was an idiot, which I so wasn’t.
Apparently a lot has changed since then.
Today
According to my original itinerary, the one where I arrived in Texas two days before to watch my oldest daughter graduate from college, not the one I followed now which in my mind is written in crayon, at this time of the morning I should be somewhere over Oklahoma.
I wasn’t over Oklahoma. My crayon itinerary, the one where I missed my flight in Austin, now had me on a trajectory over Texas, Oklahoma, a smidgen of New Mexico, and finally Colorado, where I would land in Denver and try to find a way home to Kansas City that may, or may not, involve hitchhiking with a traveling carnival.
Sitting in my seat, stewing in a thick steam of stupidity, I didn’t notice the flight attendant standing next to me.
“Nuts?” she asked.
Why, yes, I think I am.
I nodded and she handed me a small blue foil packet that probably held more foil than peanuts. The front of the bag read “Lightly Salted Nuts.” This actually surprised me. With the PR campaign to alert the world of people with peanut allergies (something nobody cared about when I was a kid, either because the allergy wasn’t as prevalent, or there weren’t as many lawyers), I wondered why airlines were still allowed to carry them.
Maybe like Velveeta’s claims of cheese, this bag of peanuts didn’t actually contain peanuts.
Ingredients: Peanuts Roasted in Peanut Oil, Salt.
OK, I was wrong.
Beneath that in italics were the words: Produced in a facility that processes peanuts and other nuts.
So the peanuts were produced in a place that processes peanuts. Was that necessary? I think if our society has gotten to the point that this kind of a warning is important, it might be time to call it quits and revert to being hunter/gatherers.
“Thank you,” I said. She smiled a well-trained smile and walked away.
After landing in Denver, I secured a KC-bound flight that left in a half-hour and, despite hard line conspiracy theories about the Denver airport being the central hub of a space alien invasion, it was really quite comfortable. Those aliens make a mean cup of coffee.
Even with the detour I landed in Kansas City just two hours later than I was originally supposed to, I got to see the Rocky Mountains, drink space alien coffee, and snagged a few extra bags of peanuts (Score).
What did I learn over my three-day, multi-state, graduation trip extravaganza?
Absolutely nothing. Next time I fly I might end up in Brazil.
Jason Offutt’s column has been in continuous publication since 1998 appearing in newspapers and magazines across the United States. Follow him on Twitter @TheJasonOffutt.
