I realize that food is a distraction. Any distraction on long flights, any distraction that does not involve listening to the crappy pop music blaring from the earphones of the miscreant next to you or the overwhelmingly tired stressed out person smells we all start emitting after a few hours, is a welcome distraction. Oh, but the strange bumps and pressures applied to your spine from the person behind you is also not a welcomed distraction. Sorry, the ever encroaching seat back in front you, the one that appears to recline a solid inch further than any other airline seat in the entire universe of airplane seats is also a most unwelcome distraction. But food can be a welcomed distraction simply because it breaks the monotony.But people please. STOP eating and drinking every motherfucking comestible put in front of you. It is disgusting. Why would you ever want to eat all of that? Just look at it, marvel at its utter disgustingness, nibble at the more tolerable items, and move on. There is no need to eat every last crumb, no need to lick those last carboardy bits of muffin off the microwaveable muffin coffin it lives in, no need to put your finger in the yogurt carton, no need to scrape out the remnants of the pasta from its microwaveable “serving” dish, and there is certainly no reason to even bother trying to drink that shitty coffee from that shitty coffee “mug”.
Who are you people? And more importantly, why are you always sitting around me? From what little I know about you, you are NOT starving, you are not escaping from a war torn, drought/poverty stricken place…you are just a regular ol’ person traveling for business or pleasure. I see no signs of you having some bizarre incessant hunger producing disease, you do not appear to be stoned, I see no reason why you would lack the means to acquire some actual food at our destination. Please, enjoy the distraction of the airplane “food time ritual” but be content to examine the packaging, do a little investigative tasting, but don’t act like this is some tasty meal. Your endless eating, scraping, licking and dispersed wrapper detritus is pissing me off. Fuck. I bet that’s your coat up there all hanging out of the overhead bin too. How do you not notice that? Your coat is completely fucked. Are you just going to leave it like that? I mean it looks like the sleeve is smooshed into the latch. You must be too busy eating and sucking down diet Sprites to notice.
Ditto!
ReplyDeleteI wish you could have heard Sherman Alexie do a rant about people who get up as soon as the plane has landed....I wrote a little about it (http://annieem.wordpress.com/2009/12/02/sherman-alexie-makes-me-laugh/) , but YOU must see him live someday. He'll crack you up, Dr. No, promise.
LMAO. Especially since I KNOW you were thinking all that irritatedly on the plane. But no one around you knew that you would blog it. Which makes it even funnier, somehow.
ReplyDeleteNext time, perhaps you should bring your UCK OFF mug for the ride. Sort of like a medival shield...
Er, that's *medieval.* (Now I feel like I should be quoting Dollhouse: "I thought this class was Mid Evil, not Advanced Evil.")
ReplyDeleteLaughing so hard I want to buy a plane ticket annd read this aloud during the stand-up open mic session that seems to now precede every flight. Who are those flight attendants? Why do they think they're so funny? Don't they know that the swine listening to them will soon be at the crap-food trough, demanding more ice and desperately clinging to wrappers long after they've become trash?
ReplyDeleteHarker: Hells yes.
ReplyDeleteAnnie Em: Oh that is funny, thanks!
Ink: Yeah, for nine loooong hours I entertained myself with blogging revenge.
Naptime: Yeah, what is that announcement bullshit? I heard LOUD and clear the instructions for purchasing $20 an ounce Pringles but couldn't hear a fucking word the pilot was saying when important information like where the fuck we were and why the fuck we taxied around for an eternity was announced.
Dammit, Dr No, I've paid enough for that excuse for food, I'm eating it. And take your damn knees out of my reclining zone.
ReplyDeleteThough, you should know that if I ever have offended anyone this way on a long-distance flight, my karma has been rebalanced and plenty over by whatever deity governs these things, which ineluctably decides, "hey, this man looks like he's good with babies, let's put him within two rows of at least two squalling newborns, both of whose families would be mortally offended if he suggested ways to quiet them over the next six hours before they finally doze as we come in to land". (I doubt my suggestions would be effective, but after the first hour it's hard not to feel they don't really have the answer either.)
I'll be thinking of this when I board a plane this week -- and snickering to myself as I lick the bottom of my "muffin coffin."
ReplyDeleteClassic.
I love you. I have spent 26 hours on an airplane in the last week and tomorrow will embark on another 4 hr flight. People, honestly, are disgusting.
ReplyDeleteSo funny and so true. It reminds me of when I was waitressing and had my very first large party. It was a table of about 20 people and when we served the food and everyone was happy all their little heads dove into the food. I said later to my manager (who had helped me serve), "It's like feeding cattle." It always amazes me when on a plane how it's the very, same way.
ReplyDeleteDon't. Really. Get. It.
ReplyDeleteIf I'm hungry, I take the meal. Then I eat the meal. There usually isn't all that much food involved, so I tend to eat it all.
I do take my shoes off on long flights, though. That can't be something you enjoy either.