In the Upright and Locked Position Part I
The wail of the cabin fans and jet engines rise above the chatter. My tray table and seat back are in their upright and locked positions. Barely a half hour into the flight and boredom sets in. It’s times like these I’m glad I bought a laptop.
Cruising at an altitude of 34,000 feet, well above the wispy cloud cover on this chilly March morning, it only seems to me like I’m sitting in a wobbly tube filled with industrial air circulation equipment; some kind of poorly mounted wind tunnel.
It’s been years since I’ve flown anywhere. The last time I got into a plane it was headed to Maryland, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t have to take my shoes off before boarding it. The man asked politely enough, “We recommend taking off your shoes and putting them through the scanner.”
“Ah, yes, of course.” I replied. After loading the rest of my belongings into separate drab, plastic trays, I took a step forward.
“Sir, we recommend taking off your shoes and putting them through the scanner,” the uniformed gentleman repeated.
“Oh, sure, no problem,” I assured him. Recommend? What he meant to say was, “Take your shoes off right now, sir, and place them on the belt.” Such linguistic acrobatics are so amusing to me. The policy seems to be "mean what you say, but don’t say what you mean," especially when it comes to shedding clothing. Still, I’m glad I put on nice socks this morning.
My first stop will be the ever-bustling Chicago O’Hare airport where I’ll catch a connecting flight to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I know what you’re thinking, “I’ve always wanted to go there!” You’re retarded. There is less than nothing in Iowa; so little in fact that new words were conceived of to describe the negative nothingness that occurs in and around Midwestern farmland. Words like “corntacular” and “farmazing.” Clearly they were formulated to shed a certain positive light on their subjects. Still, there is always the intrigue of being in a new place.
“Something to drink?” asked the grinning flight attendant. I think I’ll get tired of hearing that before the day is out. I’m already suffering the twitches and shakes of a high dose of caffeine administered in two consecutive vessels beginning around 4 o’clock this morning. As bad as it makes me sound, I haven’t been up before proper dawn in some time, much less driven for miles before sunup. The airport is a welcome sight at 5:45 AM when the only other people you’ve actually laid eyes on since waking up are the purveyors of that morning caffeine ration. No matter what the time of day or night, the airport will always be filled with people who are sick and tired of standing in lines. Me, I love lines.
I should first make note of the fact that “standing in line” is a misnomer. What you’re really doing is “standing in clumps of exasperated people moving almost imperceptibly toward an unseen destination that is, nine times out of ten, another line.”
First, you must wait in line for ticketing (or check-in). This morning I was very fortunate to have waited for at least fifteen minutes in the wrong line before a kind gentleman informed me of my error. But Lady Luck had drawn my number and the correct ticketing line was much shorter. I finally reached ticketing and strode happily to the counter.
These days, you should consider yourself immensely fortunate to deal with a human being in virtually any transaction, no matter how seemingly complex. The ticketing lines of my memory with their smiling, friendly airline employees have now been replaced with touch-screen kiosks. Quicker, perhaps, but certainly lacking that personal touch. One swipe of a credit card bearing your name and your e-ticket is retrieved and printed. I was even able to upgrade my seat to Economy Plus, affording me some extra legroom that I am now filling with laptop. After ticketing, your checked baggage is taken, and off you go to security.
Thanks to the blinding efficiency of self-service ticketing and the necessary vigilance of airport security, this line now contains every single person who made it through ticketing in the last seven days. Many of these people have already forgotten where they were going.
After having every possible piece of extra clothing and all of your belongings irradiated by the security scanner you finally move on to the gate where you will spend the next six thousand years (if you’re lucky). If you’re not lucky, your plane has already taken off and you don’t even get the pleasure of waiting.
Eventually, you and the other lucky ones will board the plane and endure a twelve-hour safety demonstration followed by about six hours of Seatbelt Charades during which the flight attendants will show you, in no uncertain terms, how to latch a simple device everyone has known how to use since they were two years old.
Finally all of the waiting pays off and your plane taxis out onto the runway to wait in a line of other planes for sixteen days.
Take off is my favorite part. When the pilot throws all of the engines to maximum thrust and you feel this unimaginably heavy and sophisticated conveyance leap almost immediately to a hundred miles an hour and then, miraculously, get sucked up into the air, there are no more appropriate emotions than utter awe and excitement. The novelty of air travel wears off pretty quickly after that, and even though the gamut of unpleasantness leading up to the actual take off may be worth it, the flight itself is seldom exciting. It deserves to be said, though, that an unexciting flight is generally a good flight. With that out of the way, let me give everyone a few of my own personal tips for air travel.
Always try to get a window seat, preferably one in the middle or rear of the aircraft. This way, if one of the wings tears off, you’ll have a fifty percent chance of seeing it happen. If you can’t get a window seat, try to make a deal with whoever is sitting near the window in your row to swap seats if there are any wing-tearing-off noises coming from outside.
Once you are at a cruising altitude and the captain has turned off the seat belt sign, feel free to get up and move about the cabin. Skipping and imaginary hopscotch are discouraged, but slithering side to side like a snake is always a good option. If you're feeling saucy, you can try to move in mysterious ways.
There may be an in-flight film at this time and chances are it will be a film released around 1974. Audio will probably be available on Channel 1 using the headset of the person sitting next to you because yours is missing a cord. If you’re watching the film without audio and you think it looks like the actors could be saying very funny things about their apparent situation, your fellow passengers would be excited to hear you improvise their lines. Be sure to speak loudly enough to overcome the fan noise in the cabin.
If it becomes necessary to make a water landing (read: nose-dive into the ocean), remember that the cushion of your seat can be used as a floatation device, as can most of the passengers around you, provided you grab hold of them first.
With these tips in mind, have a safe and pleasant flight.
This entry was posted from Air's Journal - Original post.
Cruising at an altitude of 34,000 feet, well above the wispy cloud cover on this chilly March morning, it only seems to me like I’m sitting in a wobbly tube filled with industrial air circulation equipment; some kind of poorly mounted wind tunnel.
It’s been years since I’ve flown anywhere. The last time I got into a plane it was headed to Maryland, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t have to take my shoes off before boarding it. The man asked politely enough, “We recommend taking off your shoes and putting them through the scanner.”
“Ah, yes, of course.” I replied. After loading the rest of my belongings into separate drab, plastic trays, I took a step forward.
“Sir, we recommend taking off your shoes and putting them through the scanner,” the uniformed gentleman repeated.
“Oh, sure, no problem,” I assured him. Recommend? What he meant to say was, “Take your shoes off right now, sir, and place them on the belt.” Such linguistic acrobatics are so amusing to me. The policy seems to be "mean what you say, but don’t say what you mean," especially when it comes to shedding clothing. Still, I’m glad I put on nice socks this morning.
My first stop will be the ever-bustling Chicago O’Hare airport where I’ll catch a connecting flight to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I know what you’re thinking, “I’ve always wanted to go there!” You’re retarded. There is less than nothing in Iowa; so little in fact that new words were conceived of to describe the negative nothingness that occurs in and around Midwestern farmland. Words like “corntacular” and “farmazing.” Clearly they were formulated to shed a certain positive light on their subjects. Still, there is always the intrigue of being in a new place.
“Something to drink?” asked the grinning flight attendant. I think I’ll get tired of hearing that before the day is out. I’m already suffering the twitches and shakes of a high dose of caffeine administered in two consecutive vessels beginning around 4 o’clock this morning. As bad as it makes me sound, I haven’t been up before proper dawn in some time, much less driven for miles before sunup. The airport is a welcome sight at 5:45 AM when the only other people you’ve actually laid eyes on since waking up are the purveyors of that morning caffeine ration. No matter what the time of day or night, the airport will always be filled with people who are sick and tired of standing in lines. Me, I love lines.
I should first make note of the fact that “standing in line” is a misnomer. What you’re really doing is “standing in clumps of exasperated people moving almost imperceptibly toward an unseen destination that is, nine times out of ten, another line.”
First, you must wait in line for ticketing (or check-in). This morning I was very fortunate to have waited for at least fifteen minutes in the wrong line before a kind gentleman informed me of my error. But Lady Luck had drawn my number and the correct ticketing line was much shorter. I finally reached ticketing and strode happily to the counter.
These days, you should consider yourself immensely fortunate to deal with a human being in virtually any transaction, no matter how seemingly complex. The ticketing lines of my memory with their smiling, friendly airline employees have now been replaced with touch-screen kiosks. Quicker, perhaps, but certainly lacking that personal touch. One swipe of a credit card bearing your name and your e-ticket is retrieved and printed. I was even able to upgrade my seat to Economy Plus, affording me some extra legroom that I am now filling with laptop. After ticketing, your checked baggage is taken, and off you go to security.
Thanks to the blinding efficiency of self-service ticketing and the necessary vigilance of airport security, this line now contains every single person who made it through ticketing in the last seven days. Many of these people have already forgotten where they were going.
After having every possible piece of extra clothing and all of your belongings irradiated by the security scanner you finally move on to the gate where you will spend the next six thousand years (if you’re lucky). If you’re not lucky, your plane has already taken off and you don’t even get the pleasure of waiting.
Eventually, you and the other lucky ones will board the plane and endure a twelve-hour safety demonstration followed by about six hours of Seatbelt Charades during which the flight attendants will show you, in no uncertain terms, how to latch a simple device everyone has known how to use since they were two years old.
Finally all of the waiting pays off and your plane taxis out onto the runway to wait in a line of other planes for sixteen days.
Take off is my favorite part. When the pilot throws all of the engines to maximum thrust and you feel this unimaginably heavy and sophisticated conveyance leap almost immediately to a hundred miles an hour and then, miraculously, get sucked up into the air, there are no more appropriate emotions than utter awe and excitement. The novelty of air travel wears off pretty quickly after that, and even though the gamut of unpleasantness leading up to the actual take off may be worth it, the flight itself is seldom exciting. It deserves to be said, though, that an unexciting flight is generally a good flight. With that out of the way, let me give everyone a few of my own personal tips for air travel.
Always try to get a window seat, preferably one in the middle or rear of the aircraft. This way, if one of the wings tears off, you’ll have a fifty percent chance of seeing it happen. If you can’t get a window seat, try to make a deal with whoever is sitting near the window in your row to swap seats if there are any wing-tearing-off noises coming from outside.
Once you are at a cruising altitude and the captain has turned off the seat belt sign, feel free to get up and move about the cabin. Skipping and imaginary hopscotch are discouraged, but slithering side to side like a snake is always a good option. If you're feeling saucy, you can try to move in mysterious ways.
There may be an in-flight film at this time and chances are it will be a film released around 1974. Audio will probably be available on Channel 1 using the headset of the person sitting next to you because yours is missing a cord. If you’re watching the film without audio and you think it looks like the actors could be saying very funny things about their apparent situation, your fellow passengers would be excited to hear you improvise their lines. Be sure to speak loudly enough to overcome the fan noise in the cabin.
If it becomes necessary to make a water landing (read: nose-dive into the ocean), remember that the cushion of your seat can be used as a floatation device, as can most of the passengers around you, provided you grab hold of them first.
With these tips in mind, have a safe and pleasant flight.
This entry was posted from Air's Journal - Original post.