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| On Memory & Place
July 25, 2005
Running Over an Armadillo in Dallas
The flight from Long Beach to Dallas was quite pleasant. It was a clear day and we made good time. I had a half hour between arrival and departure to La Guardia and, despite the misery of having to say goodbye to the Almost Husband for one last month, my spirits were relatively high. A fluke of frequent flier miles placed me in first class for the entire trip and 10:00 a.m. through 4:00 p.m. sailed by without a hitch. Even our landing was smooth.
That is, until we began moving toward the terminal and encountered a loud, plane shaking THUD, followed by a grating, scraping sound and a strange sensation of being lower to the ground. The plane abruptly stopped.
Y’all wouldda thunk we hit an armadillo, exclaimed a passenger to my left, stimulating a series of gaffaws througout the plane. I groaned. We sat some more. The minutes ticked by. The space between arrival and departure began to draw significantly closer together. The plane began to get very, very warm.
Twenty or so minutes later, the captain turned on the loudspeaker.
A funny thing, folks. We got ourselves a flat tire. We’re gonna sit here for a bit until the fire department comes and we can get some busses out here to git you back to the terminal.
Apparently, planes can get flat tires, and when that happens, the captain is not allowed to drive on the rims. Instead, the plane just sits on the tarmac in the blazing, 110-degree Dallas sun. The Texas Animal Control arrives, as do several fire engines and you sit. You sit for almost an hour until busses arrive, whereupon they unload the plane from the back, making you the last person to deplane. But before you can deplane, the Dallas Fort Worth airport realizes that they have not sent enough busses for everyone, and you wind up sitting for another half hour in a now unairconditioned vehicle, roasting in the sun. The captain gets back on the loudspeaker and jovially suggests that you use your emergency instruction card as a fan. It is now 4:40 and your plane to La Guardia is slated to leave at 4:50.
And let’s not forget about the layout of Dallas Fort Worth, which is perhaps the most poorly laid out structure on the face of the planet. When the bus finally dumped me at the terminal, I was at C1, and my next flight, now leaving in two minutes, was at C27.
To wrap up the gripe, I ran as fast as my out of shape ex-marathoner legs would carry me, knocking Texans left and right until I got to the terminal slot. Lucky for me, the stairs had not been completely pulled away from the plane and I was able to, in almost Indiana Jones style, leap through the doors, speed down the walkway, and hurl myself into my seat just as the plane was about to take off, and for the next four hours consumed as much free alcohol as first class would allow.
Posted by callalillie at July 25, 2005 12:01 AM | The World Outside NYC
Yea Corie! You survived another hazard of connecting flights. It is a well known fact that in Texas armadillos wait, hiding in the shadows, for planes taxiing in on a blazing hot runway and then throw themselves under the wheels. This lemming-like behavior has been noted but is not completely understood. I have my theories but will keep politics out of this discourse.
Huzzah for your plane leaping feat. You are a true New Yorker Welcome back.
Posted by: Vickie at July 25, 2005 7:04 AM
Posted by: tien at July 25, 2005 7:44 AM
Posted by: corie at July 25, 2005 7:54 AM
OJ Simpson did a commercial for orange juice where he leapt over passengers, baggage and gates in a race to his plane. It was parodied for years until he decided murder was his game.
Posted by: Vickie at July 25, 2005 8:23 AM
>>>OJ Simpson did a commercial for orange juice where he leapt over passengers, baggage and gates in a race to his plane. It was parodied for years until he decided murder was his game.
It was for Hertz Rental. They also showed him flying around the terminal. At the time, I thought, if he can fly, what's he doing at an airport?
www.forgotten-ny.com
Posted by: Kevin Walsh at July 25, 2005 8:35 AM
Posted by: tien at July 25, 2005 8:50 AM
D'you know, I've lived in Texas all of my 27 years... and had never seen a LIVE armadillo until two years ago... in Vicksburg, MISSISSIPPI!
See plenty dead ones, tho never at the airport... seen lots of other strange things at DFW, but never an armadillo!
Posted by: Amanda at July 25, 2005 12:58 PM
Yeah, I just guessed on the armadillo thing. Actually, they had us standing out on the 110 degree tarmac for a while and I didn't see any roadkill beneath the wheel-- though they did call animal control, which arrived with siren and flashing lights.
Posted by: corie at July 25, 2005 2:12 PM
Sounds suspiciously like armadillo cover-up.
Thanks Kevin and tien--Hertz, now I remember.
I tend to block out most things OJ for some reason.
Posted by: Vickie at July 25, 2005 4:00 PM
A few years ago, I worked on a film about airplane crashes - a terrible, made-for-TV "ripped from the headlines" kind of film.
One of the interesting things I learned was that the rims of airplane tires are made out of magnesium. It's ultra-light and really strong.
Unfortunately, when it gets really hot, it also burns like a mo-fo. Go ahead, try to put it out...you can't.
So that's reason #1 why planes aren't allowed to ride their rims to an impressively hand-break slide-stop.
Posted by: Mycroft at July 25, 2005 5:21 PM
So that's why there fire trucks came...
Posted by: corie at July 25, 2005 10:23 PM
