Whaling in Memphis

I was sitting in the airport, watching all the teenage Marines hitting on each woman they saw, and watching them get consistently rejected, when I may have had an auditory hallucination. By means of the public address system, some sort of airline employee had summoned a list of passengers to the gate, and none of those passengers were named Horselover Fat. Nevertheless, I sashayed up to the desk and inquired of the manchimp standing there, « Did someone call my name? »

He looked at me, grinning smugly, and asserted his intellectual superiority by pointing out that he couldn't answer that question without knowing my name.

Rather than explaining to him that he could have assimilated that little bit of knowledge by reading the boarding pass that I was holding in front of me, I told him that my name was Jarom Hennessey, for that was the name in the passport I was using. (Hi, Alana. Hi, Ophira. Die, Aliza.)

« Nope, » he said, and as I began climbing over a pile of Marines, he continued, « Oh, wait. She called your name and I didn't hear. »

So I climbed back, and waited for him to ask my name. Alas, he did not; he only said, « You don't have any objection to sitting in Business class, do you? »

« No, » I lied, and so he printed me a new boarding pass. It turns out that this was the good sort of Business class—not the foul sort you might get on British Midlands, where your seat is exactly 14 millimetres wider than those in Economy, and they still stab you with sharpened Yorkshire pudding and plead with you to do your part in lightening the load of the airplane, even though you are several thousand feet in the air and don't even want to be going to the UK in the first place, but the kind where the enormous seat reclines all the way back, has electronic adjustable lumbar support and all kinds of other gadgets, the food is pretty good, and you can even get snakes if you ask for them.

First class on that flight looked even better, especially because there was a 55-year-old 4'7"-tall man giving people laypdances and begging them not to keep calling him a “stewardess”, because apparently he is some sort of “flight attendant”.

Anyway, I sat next to some fratboy douchebag who eventually learned to mind his own goddamn business, and passed on the free Bellinis since it was only 6am. I did avail myself of other free stuff, and when the stewardess (not the guy from First class) took my breakfast order, she asked if I wanted a DVD player. In mimicry of Fratboy Douchebag, I grunted, « Sure. »

She brought me a portable DVD player, which claimed to have a battery, but didn't work unless it was plugged in, and also claimed that it would not play any DVDs not provided by the airline. I did not have the opportunity to test this, since I had opted to not bring any DVDs with me. Instead, I perused the selection provided me. These DVDs were all labeled to indicate that they could be played only in the airline-provided DVD player. I have a funny story about that. I'm not going to tell it.

I don the noise-cancelling headphones, and jack them into the DVD player, into which I have put Transamerica. For a little while, I think that the lack of speech is the movie being artsy. Then I begin to suspect that something is horribly wrong, so I start over, with subtitles on. It becomes clear that all the speech has been elided, as well as some of the sound effects. A bad burn? I swap the DVD out for Firewall, and experience similar problems.

Summoning one of the stewardesses, I complain that there seems to be something wrong with something. I trade everything in for a new set. This time I don't get Transamerica, so I put in Firewall; having seen the first two minutes, I have to watch it to completion now. There's no sound at all. I discover that if I press down on the headphone plug, shifting the jack sideways, I can hear the audio portion of the presentation. What a pain in the ass.

Here would be another good place to not tell the funny story.

I switched to a better movie after that.

In retrospect, I should have taken more advantage of the in-flight service, since my next leg was abysmal. This airline was one of my favorites a little over half a decade ago, and now I am plotting ways to never fly it again. I'll note that the seat was smaller than Greg Pomerantz's former toilet, that the “radio” controls were from the wrong century, and instead of having hot food included, the flight staff sold sandwiches and “snack boxes”. Matthew Garrett might say that this sort of flight gives one more freedom than the sort where you get a choice between two different meals or nothing at all, but I think that it is a travesty. There should be giant warning indications for such flights, so that one has ample time to purchase crappy, overpriced airport food to drag on board, as that is a better alternative.

The third leg was rather unremarkable, except for the elderly Jewish man who kept fondling a stewardess and gesticulating some sort of claim that he had no command of English. Just prior to the descent, she gave him a loud scolding, repeating at the end, « Yes, you understand me. » I imagine that she could make quite a bit of money as a prostitute for the Chasidim; they like their hookers blonde.

Now the fourth leg was pleasant for numerous reasons, most of which are boring. The guy across the aisle from me bore some disturbing similarities to Mr. Foxworthy, but was not nearly entertaining enough to hold either my interest or the interest of a blonde chick, who sat on the other side of him and probably wouldn't be all that popular with the Chasidim.

One of the stewardesses was Latina, but spoke like a limp Swiss man. Her partner in comedy was not Latina, and did not speak like a limp Swiss man. I didn't catch their names, so I'll call the first one Marta and the second one Gladys.

Marta and Gladys were having a work-related discussion about a complimentary beverage prior to it having been served to some fool behind me. There was a bit of a communication mixup, so Gladys leaned over to me and gestured a few allegations about Marta, concluding with « So if you have to talk to her, just use sign language or somethin'. »

Hearing this, Marta shoved Gladys out of the way, leaned over to me, and said, « You just wait. Later on, I'll tell you something really bad about her. »

Then I wrecked some guy's priceless painting. Oops. Isn't paint a liquid- or gel-like substance? If you ask me, all instances of art are terraist weapons.

« Oh, » Gladys sighed happily, « I don't know what I'd do if you weren't here. »

Later, at the deplaning, Gladys cried out, « My friend! », and Marta nudged me and said, « She's single! »