Air Travel

Des called me the other day all flustered.  I’d just sat down and poured myself a big bowl of Grape-Nuts, was fisting the first spoonful into my gob when she started yammering on about the dreadful state of plane travel, asking me if I’d seen the latest, the whole bit about the fucking lunatic who, mid-flight, went for the emergency door on that 737 out of Seattle, not realizing that doing so is impossible at cruising altitude.  But even equipped with such knowledge, you’d still shit your britches if you witnessed something like that, so kudos to the strapping young fellow in the emergency row who gave that nutjob a good old-fashioned walloping.  Reverend Al was actually the one who sent me the now viral clip of the guy, hands behind his back, being led down the jet bridge by three cops, showing off two black eyes, a bloody nose and split lip, and, as he passed the camera, a cavernous plumbers crack—turns out, the fucker not only received the beating of a lifetime, but he also suffered the indignity of being stripped of and restrained by his own belt, which I guess he never got back. 

But, yes, I told Des, I had seen that.  Par for the course these days, unfortunately.  Well, Des had had enough, she said.  She said the community center down the road from me—the same one where I attended the Undutiful Husbands Anonymous meeting a few weeks back—it was having a month-long crash course titled Smoother Sailing: How to Effectively Deal with Menaces to Society on Aircraft, and she wanted me to come with her.  Now look, I’ll be the first to admit that way too many people are allowed on airplanes—(I’m not sure how you accomplish it, but there needs to be some sort of competency test, an are-you-capable-of-being-a-decent-human-being test, something to weed out and permanently ban from air travel not just the psychopath who lunges for the emergency door, but also the manspreader whose lack of self-awareness is so astonishing it’s almost impressive, or the guy who props up his feet on the armrest but only after he’s taken off his shoes and socks, or the girl who whips out her dirty Tupperware packed with a homemade lunch with a stench so rancid it engulfs the entire cabin and becomes a biohazard, or, the worst of all of them, the person in 29C who tries to deplane before everyone else sitting in rows 1-28, like are you gonna miss your connection? no? well then slow your roll, Jethro, and sit the fuck down)—but why do I need to learn how to deal with these people, these aptly-named menaces to society?  Isn’t that TSA’s job?  Or the air marshal’s?  I don’t know.  I’ve already written my local representative about pushing some legislation that would institute public executions by firing squad for these types of people, but I haven’t heard back yet.

Well, I agreed to go to the class, and Des offered to drive, which, at first, I thought was a nice gesture, but really all it amounted to was my being falsely imprisoned in her apartment as she struggled to decide on her hair and makeup.  We rolled into the gymnasium about a half hour late, and Des wasted no time in pinning our tardiness on me, saying that we’d had a flat and, because I didn’t know how to change a tire, I had to call my ex-wife to come to our rescue.  See, Des explained to the complete strangers, it used to be her car, the ex-wife’s, she loved it, knew all its ins and outs, but this guy—pointing at me—he was so petulant and spiteful during whole the divorce process, she just threw her hands up and let him have it, a small price to pay for her emancipation from a nightmare marriage.  Umm, what the fuck was that, Des?  When she saw my face, the certain redness of it from my embarrassment and disbelief, she laughed and said it was just a joke, that no one believed it.  But the sight and sound of the attendees attempting to stifle their sniggers and giggles said otherwise. 

Anyways, the instructor said we’d showed up just in time, that we were just about to begin that day’s exercise—how to subdue unruly passengers.  Fitting, given the recent news.  So, we arranged about a dozen chairs into two columns, two to a side, a makeshift aisle down the middle.  What we have here, the instructor said, is a representation of the main cabin of a Bombardier CRJ200, a regional jet, with two fuselage mounted turbofan engines, capable of reaching a cruising speed of around 500 miles per hour.  Then, looking at me, he basically declared that I would be the volunteer for the exercise.  Before I could ask him if he knew what the word “volunteer” meant, Des had pushed me forward, and the instructor received me, placing a hand on my shoulder and asking me my name, to which I replied, a bit hesitantly, umm, Sterling, and then he said, wonderful, so Sterling here will be our unruly passenger, and what he’s gonna do is what our guy in the news tried to do the other day, that is, open the emergency door, and the rest of you are going to try and stop him.  I had plenty of questions, but before I could ask any, he sat me down in one of the chairs and told me not to worry, assuring me that he wouldn’t let it get out of hand.  Get out of hand?  I sure as fuck hoped not?  But things were moving fast, and Des and the other attendees had already taken their seats and then, all of a sudden, the instructor was yelling at me GO, STERLING, GO, so I got up out of my chair and looked around, realizing that the location of the emergency exit had never been disclosed.  I looked at the instructor, but he just had this devilish grin on his face, nodding his head like Jack Nicholson in that gif from Anger Management, so I took that as my instruction to just fucking go for it, which I did, and holy cow I wished I hadn’t, because the other passengers, the other attendees—led by Des—they were on my ass faster than flies on shit.  I mean, they fucking swarmed me.  In their rabid and frenzied rush to get to me, they sent their chairs flying and banging across the hardwood floor.  I tried to resist them, but someone grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked my head back like I was the human sacrifice atop a Mayan temple, another had the elastic band of my underwear, trying his or her damnedest to bisect my body from the ass up.  Those who couldn’t grab a hold of me barked orders and yelled questions at each other like, WHERE IS DUCT TAPE?! and SOMEONE GRAB HIS SHOES!  and then I felt myself being lifted off the floor.  They carried me away from the chairs and dumped me into the center circle at midcourt and then they were on me again, someone grabbing my arms, someone my legs, and, Jesus Christ, I guess someone had found the duct tape because they began to hogtie me.  I started yelling, shouting that this exercise had run its course, that I could no longer pretend we were on an airplane because, what the hell, the maniacal horde had very clearly carried me outside of it, so either we were on one of the wings or were in a fucking freefall, and that’s when the instructor, as if he were some bigwig Hollywood director, yelled CUT!

It was like the class attendees had been awakened from a hypnotic trance, cured of their temporary zombification, blinking their eyes and shaking their heads, looking at one another and mouthing to themselves what happened, why is this poor fucker all knotted up like a pretzel?  I swear, I think I saw one guy fold up a pocketknife and slip it back into his jeans, trying to look all innocent, like he wasn’t about to gut me like a pig.  See, the instructor said, that is what you can accomplish when you band together against a common enemy.  I let out a laugh.  Don’t be such a baby, Des said as she hauled me to my feet.  Then, she whipped out her own knife and unbound my wrists.  What the hell, was everyone here armed?  Was I actually in danger?  Was I supposed to have been operating under the assumption that all these passengers had gotten their knives through TSA?  Those thoughts were interrupted and left unanswered, though, as the instructor announced that that would conclude that day’s session but to make sure that we returned next week for spicy tips on what to do when you’ve already boarded the plane and taken your seat, and it’s only a couple minutes until the gates close and there’s no one in the seat next to you, so you’re hoping, please God, just this once, let me have a comfortable flight, but nope, God says ha ha, wow, you’re such an idiot, and in walks Tubby McTubberson with a breakfast burrito, two Diet Cokes, and an interesting and mysterious scent that can’t be attributed to the burrito or the sodas, and he sits down in the seat next to you and immediately apologizes, for what, you’re not entirely sure, and you start to feel a bit guilty, but only for a second because he then says not to worry, he knew he’d be a bit gassy which is why he took some preventative measures in applying a dozen squirts of a woodsy and citrusy cologne.  Admittedly, the class sounded interesting, but I probably wouldn’t be attending out of fear of what would happen to me.