Alright…Raff mentioned it and it drew quite a bit of interest in comments and emails….so here we go.
If you’ve already heard this story, I’ve changed the names to protect the…..well, you’re supposed to say “innocent”, but….oh hell….I just changed the names.
SO….we arrived back in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii after a fun-filled, nine month, all-expenses-paid vacation to the lovely resort destinations of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. We get back to the barracks area and my beloved Corps decided they don’t want to see us again for a week. We’ve got the next six days off. Toby…my partner in crime for this adventure…suggests we hop a flight back to the East Coast for a few days. After 30 minutes or so on the payphones, we’ve got tickets waiting for us at the Trans-World Airlines counter at Honolulu International Airport for an 11:30 pm flight that night.
Now…we’ve got nothing to wear except uniforms that we’re not authorized to wear out in town. All of our stuff is boxed up in a warehouse and we’ve got a plane to catch in six hours. Toby and I borrowed a couple pairs of casual shorts and a buddy of ours with a car, Mick, runs us out to the Temple Valley Mall so we can get traveling clothes. The average Walmart we know today is probably bigger than the Temple Valley Mall was back in 1991. Let’s just say that the selection was limited. We split up and each bought travel bags, toiletries, a couple changes of clothes and when we met back up we were both wearing navy-blue trousers and white polo shirts with causal dress shoes.
Back into Mick’s car we go, flying down the H-1 to get to Honolulu. We’re going to be four hours early for our flight, but Mick’s got a date tonight and he’s doing us a favor. Four hours in an airport…what could go wrong?
The answer to that question is “alcohol”…alcohol is exactly what could…and did…go wrong. For those of you who didn’t know, alcohol was forbidden for U.S. Troops during Desert Shield/Storm. We hadn’t had a drink in nine months. Top that off with the fact that we were both probably 15-20 pounds below our normal drinking weight, inject it with the fact we hadn’t eaten or slept in a day and were jet-lagged to hell and back…then sprinkle in some patriotism and you have the perfect recipe for trouble.
Anyway….we pick up our tickets, take our carry-on bags and head to our gate. Halfway to our gate we see the bar…we’ve got hours to waste, why not have a drink? I can’t tell you what day of the week it was. I can’t tell you what the weather was like that day. I can’t even tell you the name of the bar. BUT, I can tell you that I ordered a Jack, neate and Toby ordered a Kamikaze on the rocks….because back then, Jaybo always ordered a Jack, neate…and Toby always ordered a Kamikaze on the rocks. Good way for two guys who haven’t eaten or slept in a day and haven’t had a drink in the better part of a year to skip right from Super-Fly Weights and jump face-first into the Heavyweight division, don’t ya think?
About two drinks into this potential catastrophe the waitress brings us two more drinks that we didn’t order and tells us they’re from the people at the table in the back. We turn and look and there sits a pair of couples old enough to be our parents. We nod in appreciation and raise our glasses to them and consume our drinks. One of the men make their way over to us and asks which branch we’re in and if we’ve been to the desert. Toby looks at his watch and tells the guy we were there about 19 hours ago. Here comes that sprinkling of patriotism I was talking about….those two couples bought us drinks for the next three hours. As fast as we could put ‘em away another round showed up.
By the time we needed to start making our way to the plane we were the epitome of the phrase “Tore up from the floor up”. If you’ve ever flown out of Honolulu and can remember the concourses, you’ll know that those walkways are probably about 40…maybe 50 feet wide. We were literally staggering so bad we were hitting both walls, stumbling over plants and tripping over benches trying to make it to our flight. It had to have been a sad sight to see. I’m just glad it was damn near midnight and there weren’t that many people in the airport.
The two ladies working the gate for our flight were probably watching us the whole way down the concourse. By the time we dug our boarding passes out and tried to hand them over, one of the ladies just looked at us, shook her head and told us that we weren’t getting on that plane. Before I could say anything, Toby pointed a finger and said “Listen here, Bitch” which I know sounded more like “Lisseneerbish”. I remember slapping Toby’s finger out of the air and I’m not sure what I said to ease the tension, but they ended up letting us board.
Now…Not only did they screw up and let us on that plane…(here comes more of those patriotism sprinkles)…seeing as we had just come back from the planet’s litter box, they seated us in first class right behind the cockpit. Ya know what you get in first class, right? You guessed it….free drinks.
BUT…we didn’t get to enjoy the free drinks. I don’t even remember the take-off. We were both passed the hell out before the wheels ever left the ground.
I woke up somewhere near the California coast. We probably only had an hour left on that flight because we were both switching planes in Phoenix. I was thirsty and needed to go to the bathroom. When I made it back to my seat Toby was awake. We sat there for a few minutes trying to re-hydrate our ourselves and swearing that we’d never do that again. Then I glanced up at the wall in front of us and an epiphany came to me.
I asked Toby if he wanted to have some fun…he, of course, said yes. I said just follow me and do what I do.
The Pilot and Co-Pilot had their jackets and hats hanging right outside the cockpit, which ended up being directly in front of us. I stood up and threw on a jacket and hat and Toby did the same.
Toby had to stop off at the little boys room, so I walked back through coach and started introducing myself to everyone individually as “Captain Jim, your pilot…Good to meet ya!” (Think “Eric Stratton, Rush Chairman” from Animal House) Handshakes and smiles abound. The stewardess are grinning and laughing. Tony is a minute or so behind me in the opposite aisle telling everyone he’s the co-pilot…shaking hands, smiles….everyone’s having a good time.
Then my dumb ass….ya know those times in your life that you look back on and wish you could stop the words from coming out of your mouth? Well this is one of those times.
My dumb ass….**sigh**…I was standing in the middle of a gaggle of geriatrics half way back through coach shaking hands and greeting strangers….I turned around and saw Toby in the other aisle…and as a look of pure terror washed over my face, I yelled “HEY TOBY…WHO’s FLYING THE DAMN PLANE!?”
Now….keep this in mind….because I didn’t put it all together until it was too damn late. Nobody in coach saw us board the plane because we were late getting there and they sat us right up front. Toby and I are both wearing navy-blue trousers and white polo shirts. The navy-blue jackets and hats fit us pretty damn good. So…nobody knew we were a couple of hung-over Jarheads…we had to have looked like the real deal….Everyone in coach had to have thought that we were really gliding through the sky with nobody at the controls.
“Who’s Flying the Plane?” It was meant to be a joke….I seriously thought everyone would know that we were just goofing around. It was meant to get a few laughs.
Not so much.
One of the ladies in the gaggle of geriatrics screamed and passed out. Pandemonium ensued. The stewardesses who thought we were so cute a few seconds before weren’t smiling anymore. They rushed to us and pushed us back through the crowds to our seats as one of them quickly got on the mic and tried to restore order. We were told by the Den Mother of the flight attendants to get those damn jackets off and to not get back out of those seats until the plane was on the ground.
The stewardesses had to walk past us every couple minutes and if looks could kill I wouldn’t be writing this post. I managed to get one to stop for a second and asked her for a drink….As of this moment, I still haven’t received that drink.
When the plane landed in Phoenix everyone was asked to remain seated. Two of the largest gentlemen I’ve ever seen in my life came on board and escorted Toby and I off the plane through a raucous round of applause and a barrage of condescending looks from the flight crew. They shuffled us through the terminal and locked us in a little room where we both were expecting the Marshall’s service to send someone in to beat a confession out of us.
After a short while a gentleman come in with a decent sense of humor and tried to chastise us through a grin he was trying to contain. We were both given lifetime bans from TWA and had to reroute our flights from Phoenix to our destinations on different airlines….not to mention our return flights.
That happened a decade before 9/11. I can’t imagine the beating we’d have thrown on us if we did something like that now.
A lifetime ban from TWA….no big deal right? There are plenty of airlines out there that will be happy to take my money. Well….ya ever hear the saying “what goes around comes around”?
It came around almost a decade later. I was trying to get a flight from Los Angeles back to the east coast in a pretty narrow timeline. The Marine Corps booked the flight for me…all I had to do was pick up the boarding passes and get on the plane. I didn’t even look at the itinerary until the first leg of the flight was preparing to land in St. Louis. My connecting flight was on a TWA bird. SURELY they wouldn’t remember that one little incident.
But they did. I couldn’t get a connecting flight out on another airline until the next morning.
Ya know…Karma’s just a bitch sometimes.
BUT….I’ve spent the night in a LOT worse places than an airport terminal.