Apr 30 2006

Nervous flier

In addition, HappyJet would like to assure you that (A) we have food tasters to make sure the pilots are not all incapacitated by bad fish, (B) we have screened the cabin crew to make sure none of us are kidnappers, (C) none of the flight crew is prone to flashbacks to their war service, (D) we are carrying no snakes, (E) our wings have been fitted with special anti-gremlin devices, (F) neither our radar nor visual inspection reveals any UFOs in the area, (G) none of the passengers are cute little girls under time pressure to get to a hospital, and thus we needn’t fear a hijacking delay with a potentially tear-jerking outcome, (H) we are carrying no spiders, (I) that sneezing man in row fourteen has nothing more than a slight allergy to rose perfume, (J) the President of the USA is not on board incognito, (K) we are carrying no scorpions, (L) none of the ground crew recently started sleeping with a foreign women with legs that won’t quit, a mysterious past, and a tendency to phone her “mother” furtively and bang down the phone whenever someone else comes into the room, (M) the courier in row two is in fact carrying a human kidney in that case, not a weapon, (N) it’s not a kidney from anyone you know, (O) our cabin crew is capable of doing an exorcism in under thirteen seconds flat, (P) we are carrying no mutant centipede/weasel hybrids, (Q) we have plenty of oxygen for the masks, and have double-checked to make sure it hasn’t been stolen and sold on the black market, (R) the seat cushion floatation devices actually do float, years of beer farts nonwithstanding, (S) our on-board instruments indicate that all of the usual laws of physics are still in effect, particularly the ones you don’t quite understand that we exploit to let us hurtle through the air without plummeting into a swamp, (T) our destination city has not been replaced by an alien simulacrum with disturbing differences such as packs of carnivorous pseudochildren, (U) we have already worked out a procedure to determine who to eat first if we’re stranded somewhere without food, and it isn’t you—it’s the fat flight attendant wearing the “EAT ME” button, (V) according to reports from fire houses all over the world, you did not forget to unplug the iron, (W) even if your spouse were to hit on one of us while we’re handing out ginger ale and packs of peanuts, we’re totally uninterested, (X) even though this is a very powerful machine, your child cannot electrocute himself by licking the twelve volt power jacks, (Y) although the canned orange juice is imported from a place you probably didn’t even know grew oranges, it’s perfectly okay, and (Z) we are carrying no homosexuals.