Pre-Flight Burrito

There are many things in this world that you just shouldn't do.

• Wave a red cape at a bull.
• Throw rocks at a beehive
• Take a laxative and sleeping pill at the same time

and perhaps one of the biggest mistakes one can make is to partake of a burrito just before a flight. In fairness, the item I ordered was simply called the MegaWrap and scratched in chalk just to the right it said (1lb) whatever that means. It didn't say burrito on the menu, but rest assured it had all of the necessary requirements to meet the FDAs standard for such non-sandwich meal. Beans, cheese, guacamole, chicken - all wrapped up with some spicy dipping sauce on the side....not the items you want to ingest before a flight. And yet I did.

My flight to Boston was scheduled for 3:50 PM today and like a good patriotic citizen I arrived 2 hours beforehand to face the challenge of the airport decathlon including the porter baggage toss, screeners switchback relay, 50 meter barefoot fungal walk and wheelchair dodging. I then parked it and awaited the pre-board announcement, content to surf the web with free wi-fi.

Lost in the invisible waves of the internets, I was jolted to attention not by the grumblings of the MegaWrap, but by a collective groan from the crowd - sounding as if they were all watching a video of someone being hit in the groin by a child trying to whack a pinata. I looked up and noticed the flight departure was set back 3 hours.

Three hours passed - in which I could have watched 3/4 of a baseball game, cooked 15 pots of corn on the cobb or written another rambling blog like this one. Finally we boarded.

I won't bore you with the details of the heavily intoxicated upper-class middle-aged woman with a Pekingese that was occupying my seat and couldn't find her wits enough to move, but I will say that for the 90 minutes that we were sitting on the runway, I was reminded of the perils of eating a giant burrito before a 3 hour flight.

The flight was cancelled. Not because of the burrito, but because of a mechanical failure on engine one. I love it when pilots are so honest. They debarked everyone and after 10 hours at RSW airport I am comfortably resting at a hotel near the Fort Myers airport, 5 miles from my apartment where I will try this all again in the morning.

I think I'll skip the breakfast burrito.