In Flight
Some things aren't meant to be
Some things weren't meant to be. Like La La Land winning the Oscar for best picture, global peace and me sleeping on board my transatlantic flight. For once I'm flying alone so I get to choose between window and isle seat. I'm the sort of person who needs to go you know where the minute the flight takes off, so of course I chose isle. Big mistake!
Usually I travel with me better half who is, to put it delicately, not as tall as I am. So the minute the seat-belt sign goes off I become her bed. In minutes she's fast asleep and I'm left to stare at the minute screen in front of me screening heavily sedated movies that are suitable for a three year old. I once had the pleasure of watching the in air, modified version of Basic Instinct; it was shorter than the trailer. But I digress. So I'm on this transatlantic plane boarding at midnight, and I think to myself, YEH I will sleep for around six, seven hours and arrive refreshed. Right, and pigs can fly.
So we're all neatly locked into our seats when the pilot announces that there will be a slight delay as we are too heavy and they are going to have to remove some cargo. How can we be too heavy? Don't they have some control over that? I mean they are all so fussy about the weight of my suitcase, you'd think they knew how much cargo to load. If I'm 4 lbs or 2 kilos over they make out like it's the end of the world. Anyway I won't tell you which company this was, they might boycott me next time or, ever worse, seat me again next to the 200 kilo guy who has yet to discover deodorant. I still dream of him during cold winter nights.
I'm sitting in my isle seat. I've got everything planned out. I'll skip the food. Who needs braised steak and veggies at 1 A.M. anyway? I will ignore the movies which look better on a proper screen anyway, and get my beauty sleep. The plane is a new one, which means there is actually some room for my feet. Miracle of miracles. But there's a price for everything. To give me more foot space, they had to cut the width of the isle. This means that everyone passing by my seat is forced to high five me, low five me and generally get to know my in the biblical sense.
As soon as my eyes are closed the stewardess starts running down the aisle selling BBB Airline MasterCard tickets with some clever plan for suckers. Boom! That was my head. Then there is the duty free wagon Bam! And the soft drinks
“Would you like a soft drink sir?”
“Sir, would you like a soft drink?”
“Oh were you asleep?”
Bash! Her elbow hits me in the chin as she passes the apple juice to the women sitting next to me. O.K. So we've done the drinks and the duty free and the MasterCard, now for that snooze.
“Beef or Chicken Sir?”
Yeh, well I'm awake, so I may as well have a short bite. No point sleeping on an empty stomach.
“Sorry about that sir” says the smiling air robot as she manages to upset the goulash over my jeans.
Oh what the hell, I'll watch a movie. There's Invictus 5, The Avengers 12 and High School Musical 74. It's touch screen. I press Invictus. Nothing happens. My finger tips are specially treated with anti-touch screen lotion. It is something I was born with. ATM machines and IPhones are specially programmed to ignore my choices. I pick Invictus, nothing happens. I try again, still nothing. Third time lucky a sign appears. You have picked High School Musical 74. I'm beaten. There's no one watching me. Maybe it will be good. Now if I can only get rid of the Spanish soundtrack.
I have now been passed three glasses of fruit juice and it's time to pay a visit to..
This is the time the Please fasten your seat-belts we're hitting a bit of turbulence announcement comes on. Funny isn't it that every flight has those few minutes of turbulence exactly when they want to serve a meal, or coffee. Coffee it is. Luckily flight coffee is always lukewarm. Lucky, I say, because most of it finds itself into my lap. Believe me if this was a movie it would be much funnier than High School Musical 74. But it's not. And when did they start employing third grade stand-up comedians as flight attendants. If I hear the joke about gathering around the front lavatories one more time, I swear I'll hijack the plane myself and force the comedians to sky-dive.
No I'm only kidding. I didn't mean it. I'm a nice guy really. Please don't black list me.
