So today was fun...

Alright. So I'm at Kent State University for a conference - back tomorrow, right? For whatever reason (I actually know the reason, but it's not smart) I had to fly from Albany to Charlotte, NC to Akron. In Charlotte we had taken off when you could tell something was weird. And I mean Passenger 57 weird ("Always bet on black."). Whenever the plane tried to accelerate, the nose dipped down. Like the pilot was flying with the emergency brake on.

So this continues until we're in the air for about 10 minutes when the pilot comes on and says "We have a problem. We're turning around to go back to Charlotte."

So we land. And sit there for an hour while flight attendants run around. It's a little disconcerting. The pilot then, after about half an hour, comes back on the intercom and says, "Sorry folks," (I hate being called "Folks." I also hate being referred to as "People," and I will never walk towards you if you waggle your finger at me.) "There's a headphone jack on the outside of the plane that allows the ground crew to talk to the cockpit. The headphones were still in the headphone jack when we took off and it was slamming into the bottom of the plane." No crap, right? The plane's only going 300 miles per hour. "Also, those headphones were banging up against the plane right in front of the engine. It would have been bad if the headphones had come loose in front of the engine."

No crap, right? And another thing. I was not comfortable with the fact that he - twice - referred to "the engine" in the singular. As in "One Engine."

Then the pilot continues with the "On The Bright Side" section of the announcement and says, "Add to that we had a full tank of gas and were overweight by about 3,000 pounds and it could have been a sticky situation." And by "sticky" I'm assuming he meant "burny" or "bloody" or "messy."

So I got here an hour and a half late. And the only guy bigger than me on the entire plane was sitting next to me. Thanks, USAir. Thank you.