Saturday, December 15, 2007

Funny Story

Ok, so I forgot about this funny thing that happened to me last week.

I'm a the Philadelphia airport waiting to board my flight to Raleigh. I've got my headphones in and I'm reading a magazine.. when the plane I'm about to board begins to let off its passengers. A whole slew of people come off, followed by an airline worker who is struggling to push a woman in a wheelchair who is wheezing and hooked up to oxygen, and also pull her oxygen tank behind him. He looks in my direction and yells, "I NEED SOME HELP OVER HERE!"

Now, maybe it's because I'm always paranoid that an emergency is going to happen and I won't realize it. Maybe it's because I'm terrified that if my CPR certification from this summer were ever needed to be put to use, I might not remember exactly what to do. Maybe it's because if anyone ever yelled for help, my first reaction would be to drop everything and run to them.

For whatever reason, when he looked in my general direction and yelled that, I immediately yanked out my headphones, put down my magazine and SPRINTED to the man and the woman in the wheelchair. I just looked at him and he wasn't directing me to do anything... I started to assess the situation.. the woman didn't look like she was dying or anything.. no heart attack, no asthma attack or seizure... uh oh... The man starts to look at me kind of funny... My armpits begin to sweat and I can feel my face turning pink...bright pink...

Another woman walks up right behind me... an airline worker... who takes the oxygen tank... The man looks at me and says, "Are you with this passenger?" and I stutter to say, "No..you yelled for help.. so I came to..." my voice trailed off as I realized that the airline worker who had come to help him had been standing right behind my seat... This was all starting to make sense now.

The man says, "Well, I have her to help me," gesturing towards the other airline worker. "Thanks for the offer though."

I sheepishly apologize and turn to go back to my seat, when I realize that the whole waiting area is staring at me, silent. One woman is in her seat, eating a piece of pie, her forkfull paused halfway to her mouth, her eyes looking upward at me.

I sit down, put in my headphones, pull up my hood, and lean back against my chair. Just another embarrassing moment in the life of Kristen ;-)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dude! You should have immediately asked where the bathroom was - it's a great way to extract yourself from any embarrassing situation - and then locked yourself in a stall and died of mortification. Great story, Kris!

Anonymous said...

I would like to say chalk another one up for Kristen's embarassing stories, but if you really think about it, what if it really had been an emergency and they really did need your help, you would have been the only one who got up to help, and you would have been the hero, and everyone would have been starring out of awe instead of just starring for something to do. There should be more people in the world like you, you really don't give yourself enough credit. Sorry if you felt embarassed, but you shouldn't have!