Conversion, not something just for high school students

I can’t believe I have gone this long without blogging. Granted I have flown 8,000 miles and slept not nearly enough, but hey no excuse right?

Alas, what I thought was to be an uneventful flight from Australia to home turned out to be anything but. About halfway over the water I am half nodding in and out of sleep, ‘watching’ a truly terrible movie. Which movie? So bad I can’t even remember the name just that it was the third movie of the flight. However amongst the clouds of my slumber I feel a hand shaking my shoulder.

“My seat belt is fastened! Thank you”.
“No, Sir I think we need you”
“Think or you know you do?”
“We need you so”

My adrenalin glands thankfully wake up quite quickly and pushes me out of my plush upgraded (thank you United) seat. We rush downstairs to the first floor of the 747, where an 18 month old boy is having a severe fever and is just starting to go into what is quickly becoming a febrile seizure. We quickly start to cool him and take his temperature. Of course the only thermometer handy comes from Australia. In other words uses that backward standard of Celsius.

“Quick what is the temp?”
“40 degrees, sir.”
“What? I mean I need to get some paper from the galley”
“(hushed), quick ask the pilot how to convert from C to F”

We cool the boy and within a few minutes he is up and happy as a clam. I love kids. One moment at death’s door (or so they complain), the next running outside to play with their friends. I would like to thank United flight attendants who treated me so well both during and then especially for the rest of the flight. You are truly an underappreciated group.

Another fun flight goes into the log book, of the 101 many adventures at 39,000 ft.