Trip to Germany: The scariest part was the airplane ride

The author snapped this photo of the Delta jetliner he flew aboard to Germany. In the column he referred to it as a DC-10 but in all probability it was an MD-11. Image courtesy of Del Stone Jr.

A large group of my friends – large enough to physically overpower me – escorted me to the airport for my recent trip to Europe.

They know I’m a weenie about flying (as if I hadn’t collapsed into their arms the week before, begging them to pray for my soul) and they wanted to make sure I actually got on the airplane so I couldn’t fake the trip, like the government did with the moon landings and the Mars mission.

We got to the baggage check-in and I told the lady at the desk, “I’m a gutless weenie when it comes to flying,” and she gave me a fishy stare and declared, “I’m making a note of that on your boarding pass.”

Then my friends dragged me to the gate. They announced my plane was ready to go and my friends pushed me forward and suddenly I needed to spend some quality time in the toilet.

“Hello. It’s the gutless weenie,” chirped the boarding clerk as he examined my pass. I should have punched him, but I was too afraid.

We got aboard. I’d asked for an aisle seat, preferably in the no-visibility section. But the airline, in its infinite wisdom, had assigned window seats to a pair of newlyweds, and THEY wanted to sit together. So while the sungglebunnies made goo-goo eyes, I got the window seat next to a spooky-looking woman of massive proportions who hogged the armrests.

We took off into Cecil B. DeMille-style thunderstorms. The plane clearly was not Charlton Heston. Our pilot said it was too turbulent to serve drinks – not too turbulent to throw handfuls of Valiums down the aisle, which would have been fine by me.

An hour later we landed at Hartsfield in Atlanta. I hurried to my connecting flight, a big DC-10 that would carry us nonstop to Frankfurt, Germany. I noticed it only had THREE engines. Could it fly all the way to Germany on THREE engines? I asked myself. No, dummy, Abusive Del answered. Halfway across they’re gonna throw your butt into the Atlantic.

As we were boarding, I met a fellow Fort Walton Beach-ite, Cat Stevens (no, not the singer – this was the REAL Cat Stevens) and her son. It was nice to know somebody famous from home would be along for the ride.

This airplane was, as they say in Brooklyn, YUGE. And even cooler, it had a TELEPHONE in the back of the seat. I couldn’t make the damn thing work, which was REALLY cool – I spent most of the trip just trying to place a TELEPHONE CALL.

Coolest of all? Soon as we took off, night happened. Couldn’t see a thing. Might as well have been on a bus. Fort the first time in my life, I slept on an airplane – well, I TRIED to sleep.

“Wake up, sir, its time for your dinner.”

“Wake up, sir, it’s time for your snack.”

“Wake up, sir, it’s time for your hot towel.”

If THAT’s all I could complain about, it must have been a pretty good airplane ride.

Actually, I’ll complain about one more thing: My fellow passengers hogged the bathroom. Right before landing, I wanted to brush my teeth and “refresh” my deodorant. So did everyone else. By the time I got in there we were pulling up to the gate.

But I’d made it – eight hours in a plane and not one single nervous breakdown.

Little did I know. …

The column was previously published in the September 3, 1997 edition of the Northwest Florida Daily News and is used with permission.

About the author:

Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”

Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.

As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.

Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .