Welcome Aboard.
It was about seven thirty in the evening and I had just boarded my flight (the only one that was on time mind you). The destination, Delhi. I was off to visit the family, check out the new house, see how my dog was coping and so on and so forth. Anyway, after locating my seat I tried in vain to negotiate some space for my duffel bag in the overhead storage. No luck. I finally found one at the other end of the damn plane. Moral; locate a space for your bag before you locate a space for your ass. After a bit of shoving and grunting and leaning and cursing I finally managed to fit it in and shut the door. Having done this I proceeded to take my seat. It was a window.
Now any guy who has ever traveled alone, anywhere, always wishes that he’ll get some hot woman that’ll promptly come and park her ass next to his. Some conversation will ensue, he’ll get her number, they’ll have dinner later and she’ll invite him back to hers. Never happens. But I got the first half of my wish. It was a woman. Or barely so. And on her left sat her husband. Fine and dandy. She was married and ugly, no skin off my nose. I proceeded to look out the window and ogle at the other planes, the fire trucks, the cranes, the fuel trucks and so on. So much machinery around is pretty hard to resist. We took off, finally and I ogled again, at the lights and the general city below. The ogling however was cut short. There’s only so far you can see from a plane in the air. In the night. So I turned my attention to the woman next to me. Didn’t happen. Her husband had got himself one of those wet towels they serve you to wipe your face and hands and generally rid yourself of the smell you’ve managed to gather. He sniffed it, marveled at it (I mean REALLY marveled) and proceeded to explain to his wife how absolutely necessary the soddy little things were. Things slowed down after that… till they served dinner.
Now dinner on a plane is a complex issue. Care must be taken to choose wisely, you must have a good sense of balance, you must LOOOVE plastic wrap and finally, you must have a stomach of iron. I chose the non-vegetarian, no points for guessing what my other option was, balanced it and managed to seat it on the tray in front of me. By which time the man from the aisle seat had polished off half his dinner. And was drinking water, not like people usually do but with both his lips around the entire mouth of the bottle! Needless to say, as he tilted it forward half the contents from his mouth spilled back into the unforgivingly transparent bottle. Needless to say, I lost my dinner. There, two feet from me, sat a transparent bottle with bits of food and curry swirling around in the water. IT WAS DISGUSTING! I forwent the dinner and proceeded to make myself a cup of coffee. The guy however, sensed that his wife wasn’t too interested in her dinner and proceeded to wolf down that as well. And just when I thought the show was over he decided to make himself a cup of coffee too! So there he was; with is coffee cup, his powdered milk, the sugar and the horizontally challenged sugar spoon. The circus was in town! For some reason the spoon caught his attention and he proceeded with shouts and yells (as much is possible on a plane without causing a panic) to challenge his wife to sugar spoon duel. Having been deprived of her dinner, she had gone to sleep. And to be awoken in such a manner caused her to retaliate to the just in a wee bit of excess enthusiasm. Which resulted in the spilling of his coffee (half made) all over the tray and down his trousers. Which in turn caused the stewardesses to come running which in turn caused many male heads to turn which in turn caused angry looks from some wives which finally in turn caused seats 22 A, M and W to become the centre of attraction. So there we were; aisle man, ugly woman and yours truly. Sitting 35,000 feet in the air with about ten pairs of eyes trained on us. Expecting more. Luckily efficiency prevailed and the mess was cleared up.
The man remained quiet for all of ten seconds. And in a failed attempt to show that he really wasn’t all that stupid he picked up the vegetable bowl. To continue I feel a short description of the bowl is necessary. It was translucent blue and was one of those arty types. With the entire thing leaning in one direction. Like a hollow leaning tower of Pisa if you will. Anyway, back to the story. Aisle man picks up the bowl and proceeds to explain to his wife (who is trying to get back to sleep) about the ‘aerodynamic’ properties of the bowl. How flights are ‘aerodynamically’ designed to cause less ‘drag’ thereby permitting the plane to go faster and more efficiently. Now how an ‘aerodynamically’ shaped bowl INSIDE the damn plane will permit it to go faster and so on I have no idea. But the man spoke with such conviction (and the wife REALLY wanted to get some shut eye) that the wife bought it. Good, the ‘aerodynamic’ vegetable bowls supplied will get us to Delhi sooner than the flights without the ‘aerodynamic’ cutlery. Those poor saps on the other carriers! Ha, God is in the details! Next he picked up his glass of ‘lemonade’, bit the rim, let go of it and drained the contents with a tilt of the head. I half expected him to turn to his wife and say “look honey! No hands!” but that wasn’t the case. He merely put the glass back on the tray. Thankfully the crew came about and cleared up the trays, ‘aerodynamic’ cutlery and all. And I thought to myself ‘show’s over!’ but no, they failed to notice the bottle I mentioned earlier. So aisle man picks it up. Turns it over a few times, looks at his wife (the fact that she’s asleep doesn’t deter him) and goes on to explain why the serve only 200ml of water per bottle on a flight. Something about excessive toilet use and engine power.
I followed the womans lead and faked sleep, to be ‘awoken’ by the captains announcement, “the temperature outside is three degrees, have a good evening and thank you for flying Air Sahara” and the cock about how they hope we would fly with them again and how they would love to serve us again and blah blah blah blah… those two got up, took their bags and got stuck in the line of people itching to savour some of the old frostbite. I left the plane last. And left the airport first, courtesy of no registered baggage. With memories of ‘aisle man and his wife’.
It was about seven thirty in the evening and I had just boarded my flight (the only one that was on time mind you). The destination, Delhi. I was off to visit the family, check out the new house, see how my dog was coping and so on and so forth. Anyway, after locating my seat I tried in vain to negotiate some space for my duffel bag in the overhead storage. No luck. I finally found one at the other end of the damn plane. Moral; locate a space for your bag before you locate a space for your ass. After a bit of shoving and grunting and leaning and cursing I finally managed to fit it in and shut the door. Having done this I proceeded to take my seat. It was a window.
Now any guy who has ever traveled alone, anywhere, always wishes that he’ll get some hot woman that’ll promptly come and park her ass next to his. Some conversation will ensue, he’ll get her number, they’ll have dinner later and she’ll invite him back to hers. Never happens. But I got the first half of my wish. It was a woman. Or barely so. And on her left sat her husband. Fine and dandy. She was married and ugly, no skin off my nose. I proceeded to look out the window and ogle at the other planes, the fire trucks, the cranes, the fuel trucks and so on. So much machinery around is pretty hard to resist. We took off, finally and I ogled again, at the lights and the general city below. The ogling however was cut short. There’s only so far you can see from a plane in the air. In the night. So I turned my attention to the woman next to me. Didn’t happen. Her husband had got himself one of those wet towels they serve you to wipe your face and hands and generally rid yourself of the smell you’ve managed to gather. He sniffed it, marveled at it (I mean REALLY marveled) and proceeded to explain to his wife how absolutely necessary the soddy little things were. Things slowed down after that… till they served dinner.
Now dinner on a plane is a complex issue. Care must be taken to choose wisely, you must have a good sense of balance, you must LOOOVE plastic wrap and finally, you must have a stomach of iron. I chose the non-vegetarian, no points for guessing what my other option was, balanced it and managed to seat it on the tray in front of me. By which time the man from the aisle seat had polished off half his dinner. And was drinking water, not like people usually do but with both his lips around the entire mouth of the bottle! Needless to say, as he tilted it forward half the contents from his mouth spilled back into the unforgivingly transparent bottle. Needless to say, I lost my dinner. There, two feet from me, sat a transparent bottle with bits of food and curry swirling around in the water. IT WAS DISGUSTING! I forwent the dinner and proceeded to make myself a cup of coffee. The guy however, sensed that his wife wasn’t too interested in her dinner and proceeded to wolf down that as well. And just when I thought the show was over he decided to make himself a cup of coffee too! So there he was; with is coffee cup, his powdered milk, the sugar and the horizontally challenged sugar spoon. The circus was in town! For some reason the spoon caught his attention and he proceeded with shouts and yells (as much is possible on a plane without causing a panic) to challenge his wife to sugar spoon duel. Having been deprived of her dinner, she had gone to sleep. And to be awoken in such a manner caused her to retaliate to the just in a wee bit of excess enthusiasm. Which resulted in the spilling of his coffee (half made) all over the tray and down his trousers. Which in turn caused the stewardesses to come running which in turn caused many male heads to turn which in turn caused angry looks from some wives which finally in turn caused seats 22 A, M and W to become the centre of attraction. So there we were; aisle man, ugly woman and yours truly. Sitting 35,000 feet in the air with about ten pairs of eyes trained on us. Expecting more. Luckily efficiency prevailed and the mess was cleared up.
The man remained quiet for all of ten seconds. And in a failed attempt to show that he really wasn’t all that stupid he picked up the vegetable bowl. To continue I feel a short description of the bowl is necessary. It was translucent blue and was one of those arty types. With the entire thing leaning in one direction. Like a hollow leaning tower of Pisa if you will. Anyway, back to the story. Aisle man picks up the bowl and proceeds to explain to his wife (who is trying to get back to sleep) about the ‘aerodynamic’ properties of the bowl. How flights are ‘aerodynamically’ designed to cause less ‘drag’ thereby permitting the plane to go faster and more efficiently. Now how an ‘aerodynamically’ shaped bowl INSIDE the damn plane will permit it to go faster and so on I have no idea. But the man spoke with such conviction (and the wife REALLY wanted to get some shut eye) that the wife bought it. Good, the ‘aerodynamic’ vegetable bowls supplied will get us to Delhi sooner than the flights without the ‘aerodynamic’ cutlery. Those poor saps on the other carriers! Ha, God is in the details! Next he picked up his glass of ‘lemonade’, bit the rim, let go of it and drained the contents with a tilt of the head. I half expected him to turn to his wife and say “look honey! No hands!” but that wasn’t the case. He merely put the glass back on the tray. Thankfully the crew came about and cleared up the trays, ‘aerodynamic’ cutlery and all. And I thought to myself ‘show’s over!’ but no, they failed to notice the bottle I mentioned earlier. So aisle man picks it up. Turns it over a few times, looks at his wife (the fact that she’s asleep doesn’t deter him) and goes on to explain why the serve only 200ml of water per bottle on a flight. Something about excessive toilet use and engine power.
I followed the womans lead and faked sleep, to be ‘awoken’ by the captains announcement, “the temperature outside is three degrees, have a good evening and thank you for flying Air Sahara” and the cock about how they hope we would fly with them again and how they would love to serve us again and blah blah blah blah… those two got up, took their bags and got stuck in the line of people itching to savour some of the old frostbite. I left the plane last. And left the airport first, courtesy of no registered baggage. With memories of ‘aisle man and his wife’.
posted by Nishant at 3:32 am
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