I hate to fly. Many love it, my brother being one of them. I remember as kids he would in fact look forward to the meal on the airplane, which as we all know is a formidable trove of delectables. I, on the other hand, hate the food as much as the flight.
Who here has flown on a plane (especially since 9/11)? Show of hands. I know what each one of you are thinking….instant teleportation cannot come fast enough. If a Wonka Bar can do it, hopefully eventually we can also. The process, beginning to end, is just terrible and, in my humble opinion, is on par to masturbating with sand paper (to girls who can’t appreciate the pain of that scenario, go ahead and shoot for masturbating to John McCain).
Packing for 2 weeks is like a term paper, I know it’s coming up but I’ll be damned if I do it earlier than the night before. 3 am, clothes strewn with reckless abandon to all four corners of the room, myself wondering why I have an odd number of socks, and somehow trying to figure out which clothes have the best “repeat” value. I’d say I got a “C” on this paper. My room looked like Calvin & Hobbes after the Mom would open his closet after he “cleaned”. It looked like someone put a pipe bomb in my dresser. You get the idea. It was a fucking mess.
I came first class through Atlanta’s international airport, and because of that the trip to Spain will be omitted. It’s the way back that sucked more than X-Men 3. I mean, they used 4 instead of 1 of those “anti-mutant” thingys on Magneto (couldn’t just hang onto one of them?)and they have that kid who when you get near him takes away your powers. But go ahead, Wolverine, kill Jean Grey. That makes more sense. Brett Rattner makes me want to shit anger. Anyways…
Security at a Spanish airport is lax. Shoes on and integrity intact, I sailed through, but not before fully appreciating the awesomeness of both the questions asked of me and the list of things not allowed on a plane. I’m more than certain a million jokes have been made about this area, but indulge me; I still find it funny.
At customs and security they ask you a series of questions. These questions are intended to determine who should and shouldn’t be considered a security threat. They are also intended to determine if your mother ate lead paint while you were in the womb. I want to offer airport security an apparently likely scenario in their eyes (I’m using generic, politically-correct names. Can’t be too sensitive these days, can you):
Timmy walks in the door of his apartment, a sullen look in his eye and shoulders slumped far more than usual. He puts his bag on the dining room table nearby as he hears what sounds like the end of Spartacus coming from the living room and knows that Frank will be pissed when he interrupts Kirk Douglas, no to mention that Timmy is not supposed to be home at all.
“Hellooooo….” Timmy says in a sing-song manner that probably won’t help the situation. The movie stops very quickly and Frank barges into the dining room.
“What-the-shit are you doing back here? What happened?!” Frank blurted, the vein that always pulses when he’s angry trying its best not to burst from his neck.
“Ok, no need to be mad. Yelling gets us nowhere.”
“It’s helping me deal with the fact that you left with a bomb I spent three months building, and instead of delivering it you come back not one hour later with no bomb and” eyeing the contents of the bag on the table, “What is that?….a card? You got a card?!”
“Sure did, at the duty free shop. I knew you’d be upset so I got you an I’m Sorry card”
Frank opens the card and it begins to play My Endless Love to which, under the printed words “I’m Sorry” is scrawled “I’m sorry for losing your bomb, but you’ll always be the bomb to me! Your buddy, Timmy”. It only took about four seconds for Frank to rip the card in enough pieces for the song to stop playing.
Feeling better after having stomped on the torn pieces of the card for another minute, Frank calms down and takes a deep breathe.
“At least tell me what happened for Christ’s sake”
Cut to airport 45 minutes ago.Jose has been working airport security for three years now. He hates his job, and the most exciting thing to ever happen was when his co-worker Phil, while examining the contents of people’s bags through the X-Ray, fell asleep sitting down and spilled his water on the control panel. This in turn combusted into a small fire which all but destroyed a Gortex jacket, two cellphones, a limited edition Michael Jordan fitted hat, and a black Gucci back with all its contents. Much to the chagrin of the owners of said belongings, Phil was just fine. Now, of course, Jose was going to have a much better day.
Timmy, having waited in line for fifteen minutes, finally makes his way to the front of it and is completely aware that he is sweating like the fat guy in a group of starving castaways on day 30. Jose is too bored to notice, really.
“Boarding pass and passport please” says Jose in his monotone, programmed voice. Timmy hands him the requested items with a shaky, nervous hand. This goes unregistered by bored Jose.
“Have you left your bag unattended at any time?” Jose monotones out, starting his usual, scripted diatribe.
“No”
“Did you pack your bag yourself?”
“Yes”
“Do you have any weapons of any kind on your possession”
“Yes”
“How long will you…wait, what?”
“What”?
“Did you just say yes? Did you just say yes to having a weapon?”
“Um…no?”
At this point, Jose is sure this sad looking man must be confused, or perhaps has somehow blurred the perception of what a weapon could entail.
“Sir, what do you have in your possession that could be deemed as a weapon?”
“I mean, ok, yeah, I have a gun, but the only reason I have a gun is so that I can protect myself if anyone tries to take my bomb. So you see, it’s not like I plan on using it, it’s just for security”
Timmy turns and sprints as he realizes that the phrase “Code Fuck” Jose blurted into his walkie-talkie couldn’t mean anything good for him.
This is a plausible story, according to the practices of airport security. I cannot fathom a scenario where any question they ask works. I mean, the fact that this picture is posted at security astounds me. This is made for people who apparently cannot read and, therefore, symbols are used to convey what is not allowed to bring. I will now make a list of what is permitted on a flight based on the assumption that I am illiterate and this is all I am given:
- No guns
- No crossbows
- No arrows, not even the feathery back portion
- No pocket knives
- No scissors or ice picks, for people with large blocks of ice for carry-on
- No saws, hatchets, or other devices of carpentry
- No golf clubs or one-legged pogo sticks
- No old school batman sound effects bubbles
- No fire. If you are on fire put yourself out
- No radiation
- No blood coming out of your severed index and middle fingers
- More no fire.
- No bowling balls on fire. This could also be easily mistaken for WIlson, Tom Hanks’ best friend in Castaway. Anyways, no him.
- No x’s. I’m at a loss. Maybe something to do with treasure.
- More no bleeding from your severed index and middle fingers.
- More no old school batman sound effects bubbles
- No skulls, bones or combination thereof. This could also mean no pirates, who I’m sure are looking for aforementioned x’s.
- More no radiation. Are people flying in from Chernobyl or something?
So I’m past security, and onto the plane. Here I get to sit down in a seat crafted for a Hobbit for a flight longer than all 3 of those movies combined. I’m so fuckarifically happy I can hardly contain myself.
My knees hit the seat in front of me, my pillow has a thin film of a case to put on the guise of sanitation (more heads have been on this pillow than the upper, inner thigh of my ex girlfriend) and the lady in front of me has been battling the decision to recline her seat or not to, and in doing is hitting my knees repetitively, which I’m sure will leave marks only mirrored by a prize hooker.
Lunch time. Oh to be me. I have a choice of chicken or pasta. Were it not for this insatiable hunger I would forgo the airplane food that my brother so longs for and just have my body eat its fat until I arrived somewhere today where they serve something with plastic poison preservatives not as the number one ingredient.
I could have found a better meal in Calcutta. I could have fashioned myself a better meal by eating the pages of Sky Mall (which if you think is a good magazine, you probably are the demographic the previously mentioned security symbols are made for). It really is horrible.)
So now I have this wonder meal inside me and no more than thirty minutes later I feel like I swallowed Palestine and Israel and they’re both fighting for my lower intestines. Luckily, it wasn’t what I thought it was, that being a numero dos, but the ability to fly for almost 9 hours and not throw in some pee time is impossibly impossible. Into the fray, my dear friends.
You don’t need me to tell you airplane bathrooms are small, but in case you do:
This bathroom smelled like John Goodman’s crotch. This bathroom smelled like someone sprayed it with a new scent called Exhumed Corpse (which is all the rage in southeast Asia I hear). Using a tissue I lift the urine-stained seat to go about my duty (no pun intended). By the looks of it, I think that the guy before me tried to spell his name with piss, got bored, and just went down the ABC’s. I mean, there was pee everywhere. The only other explanation I can think of is that another guy on the flight is just learning how a penis works, and until then is experimenting with angles.
So here I sit, writing, avoiding watching 27 Dresses and occasionally thinking about best-case scenarios in the event of a water landing crash. Over the middle of the Atlantic I’m pretty screwed, right? No chance in paddling to shore on the flotation devices, and I don’t quite know how far helicopters can get out here for those cool, hover above rescues. I guess if I’m sending an SOS I’ll be SOL.
Landing, gotta turn off all my electronic devices, because we all know that with all this advanced technology planes are built from, my laptop can fuck it all up.
Air tower control:
Tower controller: “Flight 735, what is going on!? Correct your path you are heading for a direct collision!”
Pilot: “I can’t goddammit! Wait, my mp3 player indicator light just lit” (shouts to the back) “Someone turn of your fucking iPod before we die!”
