Terror on Flight 2459

My husband almost died yesterday. Not really, but he thought so, so.....

His flight coming home from Dallas turned into a terrifying mid-air experience. Prior to landing, the captain came over the intercom and said "Okay, folks, we're going to be landing in LA in about 22 minutes, and, not to frighten you, but we're having problems with the brake on the landing gear. The flight attendants will be around to give you instructions on how to prepare for a possible crash landing."

Um. CRASH LANDING?!?! Fuck you American Air and your crash landings! That's my husband you're trying to crash with!

Edgar said the plane got so silent that you could hear a pin drop. The flight attendants came around and were showing people how to 'assume the position,' and one of them even said to his row, "I've never experienced anything like this, but I think in this situation that if you pray you should start doing that." I'm totally not kidding. They gave gave them warnings that the cabin might fill with smoke and that if they see it to stay in their seats until they give the ok for them to open the emergency doors and slide down those huge inflatable slides that you think would be really fun to go down except when YOU'RE LOOKING DEATH IN THE FACE.

Edgar hates flying. He's a nervous enough flier as it is, especially when he's by himself. It's safe to say that he was absolutely petrified at this point. He was so scared, to the point where he still can't fully describe what was happening to him. He told me that he started thinking about all of the things that he would regret, like not seeing me again and not having a child yet. At which point in his story-telling I promptly stripped down naked in baggage claim #3 to fulfill his wishes.

Luckily, there ended up being no problems. Turns out, there wasn't a problem with the brake. It was a problem with the light on their display panel for the brake. FUCK YOU AMERICAN AIR AND YOUR SORRY-ASS LIGHTS! My husband thought for 22 straight minutes that he was about to die.

It wasn't real. He wasn't in any danger. But the fear was real. He, along with every other person on that plane, thought that they were looking at mortality. They thought they would never see their families again, never see their loved ones again, never smile again, never cook dinner again, never fall asleep on the couch watching TV again....never BE again.

When he told me this story when I met him in baggage claim, my heart dropped into my stomach. To think that I was thisclose to never seeing him again, had that light been for real....I don't even know what my life would be like today.

So, my advice to you: hug your husband, wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, mom, dad, whatever. Give them a kiss. Tell them you love them. Because no matter how many times that I say that to Edgar, or he says it to me, you never know when it will be the last time.