I was just hoping for a quiet flight home
So we're leaving Dakar Senegal in West Africa, and I just want to have a peaceful flight home. You might recall that on the way over, there was a very disruptive event in New York, when they threw a guy off our plane after we had already left the gate. It was wild. See this link airplane "incident".
After the typical pushing and shoving and mayhem loading the plane, we are ready to go. I should point out that Senegalese people are not very good at queuing up, they cut in line and throw elbows and are not polite when it comes to standing in line. Otherwise, they are generally nice and fun loving, but not when boarding a plane.
The flight was leaving late at night, and was not on time. No surprise here. "Developing countries" have a challenge when it comes to efficiency and staying on track. It was the first leg of a journey from Dakar to Paris to Salt Lake City to Portland. Sounds grueling and it was.
Things take a turn for the worse
So we take off and get up in the air and level off. Then something highly unusual happens.
I was sitting in the bulkhead seat - the front row of seats up against the bathroom or other wall - and so I had lots of legroom. In fact it was a pretty big space, bigger than usual.
There was a big Senegalese guy in the next row back and he stands up and grabs his pillow. He moves up to the bulkhead space in front of our row and proceeds to lay down on the floor and appears to be going to sleep!
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| I even got a picture of the guy |
"Hey," I say "You can't lay here and go to sleep!" But he ignores me and probably didn't speak English. He was a big guy probably around 6' 3" and seemed to be around fifty years old. My guess is that he doesn't fly very much and was simply tired and wanted to lay down and go to bed.
It wasn't long before the flight attendant comes by and is rather surprised to find this guy on the floor. "Hello sir," she says, "you cannot lay here on the floor!"
But he waves her off, "I'm good, don't worry about me". Of course, I'm paraphrasing but I could get the gist of what he was saying. She persists in shaking him, as he is already drowsy and dropping off to sleep.
"Sir! You cannot sleep here!" she says, and again he waves her off and rolls over.
He responds "Everything is fine, don't worry about me, I'm just gonna sleep here..." The flight attendant is getting concerned that this guy will not cooperate. She gets on the intercom and calls a couple more reinforcements. They also try to urge him to get up and go back to his seat. He is not having it.
One of the flight attendants is worried that there is something wrong with the guy, like he is having a heart attack or something. Is he okay? Is he ill? Why is he laying here? One of the flight attendants takes his pulse.
I have been watching this whole thing since it is right at my feet. In fact the guy is kicking me as he rolls around. I can see that he just wants to sleep and is not going to move.
They continue to try to get this guy to move. There are two or three of them tugging on him and trying to get him out of the space, which is also right in front of the exit door. In fact he reaches up and grabs the big lever that opens the door, and they freak out.
"Don't touch that!"
This has been going on for a while at this point, and it is obvious this guy doesn't want to move. He is too big for them to drag him back to his seat. This whole thing is rather annoying.
Mademoiselle, you HAVE to move
His original seat was in the center aisle, one that has four seats across. They hatch a plan - if we can get the other passengers to move, then maybe he will lay down in the row of seats. Only there is one French lady who doesn't want to move. She objects, "I paid for this seat and I want to stay here!" They eventually tell her "You have to move!" She reluctantly gets reassigned to a different seat.
Surprisingly, they convince the guy laying on the floor to move back to his row where he can lay down. This has been going on for at least half an hour. So he goes back and unfortunately he is so big that his feet stick out into the aisle.
Pretty soon there is an announcement over the loudspeaker asking if there is a doctor on the plane. They are still concerned that this guy is having a medical issue. I am very dubious. He is yanking their chain. He just wants to sleep and they are making a big fuss.
So this doctor comes up and starts running a bunch of medical tests on him, and this goes on for quite some time. They have the paddles out and ... blood pressure devices, digital EKG thing ... well, I was amazed at how much medical equipment they have on a plane!
Keep in mind that Fiona is also on this flight, only we're not sitting together. She is about five rows up on the opposite side of the plane, on the other side of the bathroom dividers. Other than hearing some commotion, she is unaware that all this is going on. I make my way up to her seat and mention this whole thing. She turns around and looks and is really surprised to see a doctor, several flight attendants, and a whole bunch of medical equipment laying out.
After what seemed like 45 minutes, the doctor says "I can't find anything wrong with this guy. I recommend we let him sleep."
The doctor wanders off. The guy sleeps for the rest of the flight.
I just want to have a normal airplane trip one of these days.
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