It may surprise you to hear that I actually detest the whole flying process, despite the fact that I do fly quite often. Everything from the treatment you get as part of a herd…shepherded through this little bit, then the next, then the next, all of these false obstacles designed to make you feel like you are making progress – so you are forced into this little desperate shuffle as you edge closer and closer to being able to sit down…you are regularly fondled under the guise that you may have a bomb or drugs lodged up your anus…and even when you get on the plane you are not safe! As there is the groin check, where the air hostess goes and basically stares at everybody’s crotch one by one…under the guise of “checking if you have your seatbelt on”, yeah right – I see through your LIES, you SICK, SICK WOMAN! Then there is the gross food, that you shovel down anyway like the immense waste of space you are – because, well…what else are you going to do on this flight that appears to have an estimated duration of ETERNITY.
But still I get on these tin cans in the sky, why oh why?!
Maybe it is a little bit like that stupid thing people (well, men), say to Mothers with more than one child…”Oh, well it can’t be that bad (when referring to pushing an entire human out of your vagina), you have done it three times – if it was so terrible, you would have surely stopped after the first!” It’s dumb because obviously the joy of producing a life beats the severe woes of one day. By the way I am SO HAPPY I don’t even have the option to go through that, moreover I think you are a massive asshole as a guy, if you don’t respect and acknowledge the fact of how easy we have it in that regard – I mean my Mother had five children…FIVE children – can you imagine that? Well I can’t. Which is great. I’m not showing off or anything, I just appreciate the hand I have been dealt.
Funny side story actually, last year I overheard two of my Korean kindergarten kids having a heated debate about this very issue…the little girl was arguing that “it is best to be a girl” as they don’t have to do mandatory military service…but the boy was arguing that “it is best to be a boy” as they don’t have to “push a baby out of your belly”. They asked me to weigh in as a judge, but I was at a loss. They assessed after some time that both were equally horrifying…two years military service and the whole childbirth thing, were about equal. Out of the mouth of babes…
I’ve only just realised that I am comparing dealing with airlines to child birth, which is not what I set out to say, I hope that doesn’t make me a terrible person – but whatever, here we are. Anyway, all I was meaning was that despite the terrors of air-plane travel – the eventual destination and series of wonderful experiences you will have, make you forget (ish…almost…not really).
Unfortunately on one of my recent flights something happened I won’t forget in a hurry. Out of nowhere, the plane started theatrically swaying from side to side…there was no polite “Ahhh, folks we are running into a spot of turbulence, nothing to worry about…” etc, etc…it was just unannounced carnage as the entire vehicle shook and threw itself every which way…my legs went numb with fright, I suddenly felt icy cold – I looked across to the air hostess…who was a man…so errr…air host? I don’t know…not important, anyway;I looked across at him for some form of comfort, perhaps some reassuring words, or maybe some herbal tea or something…anything…but to my absolute dismay I found him SURFING.
Well acting as if he was surfing, hands out stretched, catching the big fucking imaginary waves – the bastard might as well have been exclaiming “if it swells – ride it, DUUUUUDE!” – my entire body got pins and needles in response…we were going down and he was wanting a quick game of charades?! We were going to plunge to our fucking watery deaths and he was fucking playing around, this was the last fucking thing I was going to see – I was about to fucking die and –
Oh.
The plane balanced and everything became smooth again. He immediately stopped the act and returned to professional mode.
“Will there be anything from the trolley sir?”
“Oh, err…tea please.”
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John Lee Taggart 
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