I'm in Denver for a few days visiting the office here. Tuesday, I flew in and sat next to a nice guy. I was in the window seat and he was on the isle. It was an MD80, which is a smaller plane with only two seets on the side I was sitting.
I've been sick the last 5 or so days with some sort of wierd cold. Makes my throat itch, my head ache and my stomach feel upset, but not much runny nose or the usual symptoms. It also makes me extremely sensitive to smells. More than I usually am, so even the tiniest little whiff of perfume, soap or other strong smell makes me ill. So, I don't rightly know if I'm sick from having an alergic reaction or if I really have a cold. All I know about it is I feel miserable and have zero energy.
So, I got on the airplane to fly to Denver Tuesday. I'm already feeling lousy and then the air conditioning goes off. Then the pilot starts playing with the intercom. Behind me I over-hear the female flight attendant say something like "What's he doing with the intercom, it worked just fine for me?" and other such comments. Then, we sit there and sit there... Eventually, somebody else gets on the intercom and says "Scccccchhh, testing 1, 2, 3..."
A few minutes later the pilot comes on and explains that he didn't think the intercom worked and that he thought that the radio didn't work either so he called the maintenance people. Turns out that the radio and intercom work fine, he just didn't know how to control the mic on an MD80... Of course, I'm thinking... Exactly, what else don't you know how to control on this plane? Meanwhile, I hear someone behind me uttering similar concerns. But, the pilot now assures us that we have a strong following wind and we'll actually arrive in Denver ahead of schedule! And we're supposed to all feel good about that after sitting in the plane with little air movement for 30 minutes because the pilot didn't know how to work the microphone... The one that the flight attendants used just fine...
Anyway, as I said, the guy sitting next to me was very nice and quite polite. But, he had terrible gas that just seemed to get worse the whole flight. So, while I'm already not feeling well, I'm a little nervous about the competence of the flight crew, I'm also trying to breath shallow. Now I'm thinking that maybe it wasn't him. Maybe it was the guy behind us and the guy next to me was thinking it was me...
I got into Denver just in time to go to dinner with some of my guys that flew there the day before. Like an idiot, I had a pepsi with dinner that they kept filling up everytime it got close to being empty. Now, I don't as a rule drink caffeinated drinks. I swore them off years ago, but occasionally will when there's a reason like when I'm driving long distances or ... Well, that's about the only time. So, why I decided to drink a pepsi this night, I'll never know. It was not a good idea. I was wide eyed all night and couldn't sleep a bit.
Wednesday I got into the office for the training and the room was so hot, I started shedding clothes. I was wearing my convertable pants and converted them. Took off my shoes and inched closer to the fan... Ugh.
Wednesday night, Demetrius, one of the guys on my team in Denver took me out to dinner to one of his favorite barbq spots. Jabos. I had the Apple mixed with smoked pear sauce on pulled pork. It was good, but, didn't sit right on my stomach. I did manage to sleep a few hours though.
This morning I went into the office and I don't know if it was the altitude finally getting to me, residual cold symptoms, the barbq, the lack of sleep. or the incredibly strong perfume of one of the gals that works in the office (Why do women or men for that matter feel the need to slather on perfume?). To me, it felt like I'd been hit over the head by a bat. My head was pounding and luckily I hadn't eaten any breakfast, or, I'm sure it would have come up. So, I packed up and came back to the hotel room where I laid down for a few hours. The extra strength tylenol and some water did the trick. I started to feel better, finally.
The trip was such a waste. I was useless pretty much the whole time.
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