Thursday, February 3, 2011

The Bible, the Jet Plane and the Poop Truck

We have had some really bad weather in Dallas the last couple of years, and this week was one of the worst. In the absence of any real alternative, I headed out to DFW airport Tuesday afternoon to catch a flight to Raleigh North Carolina. I can't remember rougher road conditions -- ice everywhere! I normally don't have a real problem driving on icy roads, but I've got to say that this drive freaked me out a little. I felt the car slip out from under me at least three times and during one particular right turn I thought there was a reasonable chance I would end up in a ditch.

I did finally make it to the airport and, much to my surprise, the flight was on time. Not so much to my surprise, I boarded the plane only to be informed that we were going to be delayed after all. The delay wasn't because weather conditions made it unsafe for take off though. Nope. It turned out that the poop truck (I am sure it has a technical name other than poop truck) was frozen over so the ground crew could not vacuum out the lavatories. I've never heard of such a thing. Really?! Delay due to frozen poop truck?! So, there we sat for about an hour and a half while someone thawed out the poop truck.

Wednesday afternoon I had to fly from Raleigh to San Diego, California with a stop over in Dallas. I only had an hour in Dallas, which is not quite enough time to stop by the house. Do you know how frustrating it is to have a stop over and be only fifteen minutes from home?! And then the flight got delayed -- twice. In fact, if I had known how long the delay would end up being I actually could have stopped at home and had dinner with the family before continuing on to San Diego. Instead I got the pleasure of eating by myself at "Popeye's" -- which I don't think I had ever tried before. Not a big fan by the way.

Finally, on Thursday I got to fly home from San Diego -- another delayed and very full flight. Between the weather and the Super Bowl it just wasn't a good week for air travel.

About the only good thing that came out of all that flight and delay time was that I was able to get a good deal of reading in. I almost always bring a Bible when I travel. It's just a good time to settle into God's word with few distractions.

Something occurred to me on one of the legs of this particular trip, though, that had for some reason escaped my attention in the past. I have flown well over 2,000,000 miles in my lifetime. (Believe me, I am NOT bragging about it. I don't particularly like to fly.) But it struck me that in all those years of travel and over all of those miles I bet I could count on one hand the number of times I've seen anyone reading a Bible. And, you know, it seems like almost everyone on the plane is reading something. I've seen them read newspapers, sports magazines, novels, self improvement books, work presentations, you name it -- but almost never a Bible.

I wonder why that is? Is it because most people are just not that interested? Is it because people are embarrassed to read a Bible in public? Are they afraid of offending someone? What is it? Enquiring minds want to know.

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