Night flight

We took the red-eye back from San Francisco. This was mostly because the flight was cheap, but also because I get a little thrill every time I say the words we took the red-eye. The plane took off at about 11:30 p.m. Pacific time, and it was 5:00 a.m. Central time when we stepped onto solid ground on the South Side of Chicago.

The flight was completely full, which surprised me. Who wants to take the red-eye? Except that as my friend Ben in San Francisco pointed out, all the flights are full these days.

Ereck and I were apprehensive about the overnight flight. In the end, however, we agreed that it was an unmitigated success, because we slept the whole way, as did everyone else. This was no mean feat for me, since I'm the world's lightest sleeper, but the plane was completely silent and almost completely dark. I awakened only once mid-flight, when we hit some turbulence, and then again when word from the flight deck came that we were getting ready to land.

I was up from then on, and I sleepily gazed at the tiny television screens that were silently showing, of all things, the video for "Easy Lover," the 1986 hit by Philip Bailey and Phil Collins. The plane was shuddering violently at this point, and as I watched Bailey and Collins mouth the words ("She's an easy lover / She'll get a hold on you, believe it"), I thought: what if this is the last thing I see before I die?