Bad Girl
Flying the Friendly Skies
I love England. But I hate getting there.
Thursday, January 09, 2014
(SNN) - One of the worst things about going to England (worse than the food) is that there are only two ways to get there, and both involve travelling over large bodies of water in which there are no visible lifeguard chairs.
The first way involves being awfully close to that vast expanse of water. Almost within arms-reach of it, you could say, for several days at a time. Bearing the Titanic in mind, I prefer to think that water is best mixed with scotch. So I usually opt for the second way: via British Scareways. Ha ha! Just kidding.
Of course I mean British Airways, and what could possibly be scary about flying 30,000 feet over Iceland and Greenland in the middle of winter, in something called an Air Bus? (Does a Greyhound Bus suddenly sprout wings? Like a street car might decide to become a submarine? Who thinks up these names?)
Pass the scotch.
And why is the pilot always young enough to still have an acne problem? It does something to your confidence. Sort of like finding out the surgeon who is about to take out your appendix paid his way through med school last year by working in a butcher shop.
I always like it when the Flight Attendant takes over the mike. It’s so comforting. First she shows you how to slip the little oxygen mask over your mouth and nose, so that you’ll be breathing perfectly when you hit the ground at 700 miles per hour. Then she shows you how to strap on the orange inflatable vest, and points to the emergency exits with their built-in slides, in case we have to land on water.
Not that I want to alarm anyone, but I’m fairly sure there are no landing strips on the Atlantic Ocean. And I have it on good authority that Air Busses (the flying kind) weren’t designed to double as boats.
But what the heck: it’s a comfort to know that when we crash-land in the middle of the ocean, we’ll still be breathing oxygen, wearing fancy floatation devices, be pickled in scotch, and in perfect physical condition for the sharks to eat.
That’s thinking ahead.
Melodie Campbell writes funny books. You can buy The Goddaughter mob caper series at Chapters/Indigo, Barnes&Noble and Amazon.
Photo: Some rights reserved by Aero Icarus flickr photostream, The Sage nor this article endorsed.
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