Aisler and Windower

8/16/11 Flight from Knoxville to Denve 9:36am
To my surprise, Knoxville airport is pretty tiny!  No matter how small and convenient, Ashley has to run into a few stories as soon as she hits the airport (hence the NEED for a blog).  I stroll up to the ticket counter, two suitcases, heels, and smile all with me.  There was NO wait at this baggage check-in, what a way to start!!!  I use all my strength to throw my large suitcase up on the scale.  (for those of you who do not have a good memory, on my last flight, my tiny carry-on weighed 10 more lbs than my huge, up to my waist suitcase).  53lbs.  Unfortunately, I was not able to butter up this flight assistant as I was in STL a few weeks back.  So of course I just said, "Sorry-- let me take care of that," and set the big boy down, opened that sucker up, and transferred jeans and pants from that to my little guy.  Lets try this again.  48lbs!  My other was 36, so we were good to go.

I then get to gate 2A, and wait in suspense.  Frontier started boarding, but they did it in a way I have never heard before.  "No carry ons to be stowed board now."  Well-- I think thats me.  I mean, I have two bags, but I keep them both under the seat.  Sure-- lets try this out.  I'm standing in line with my boarding pass out, THREE people away from boarding. "Maam, would you like to step out for an extra security scan please?"  Seriously?  My response-- as I knew he was not really asking my opinion, "Why of course I would!"  Do these people not know I'm on a mission to see who I am sitting next to?!!!  Hurry it up.

I get that over with, get on the plane, and I'm noticing something is wrong with my ticket.  It SAYS I'm in 15 B, but that is impossible.  This plane is huge, and each side has three seats.  You guessed it, 15 B is a middle seat.  This cant be right.  Debbie did me wrong!  I find row 15 with no one else in it yet, though as soon as I sit down an older women says, "Hi-- I'm right next to you by the window."  I politely got up to let her slide in, but I remember maybe a few grunts and thoughts of "well...aren't YOU lucky getting that precious window seat."  Luckily I didn't say anything out loud, as my neighbor seaters came to save the day just 3 hours later.

I arrived in Denver with my aisler and windower neighbors.  (yes, there are red squiggly lines under the words aisler and windower, but for the purpose of this blog, those are real words).  The pilot lets us know we will be hanging out on the runway until our gate opens.  Surprise surprise.  I wanted to apologize to the 1000 people on the flight, because the only reason we had to do any waiting was because I was on the plane.  But during this wait time I really got to know my two neighbors!  We were just chatting it up, me and these two nice older women.  They were loving hearing about my job-- UNTIL I mentioned I had a connecting flight that was boarding RIGHT NOW as we sit on this run way.  It was just then when I found out Aisler and Windower were nice but feisty.  And feisty to my benefit.  As soon as we pull up to the gate, they are saying, "excuse me.. excuse me!! This girl has a connecting flight NOW.  Let her go!!!!"  It was not like something you would imagine in a movie where these ladies essentially part the red sea, but it did get rows 11-15 to let me go!  How nice.

So... I run-- well, we all know that's not true-- I walked briskly to my connecting gate, only to find out my next aisle seater would be the BEST I ever had!