9 Counts of Assault in the First Degree with a Neck Pillow Tonight at work, a coworker went to empty the lavatory on one of our planes. He hooked up the hose, gave it a good tug, flipped the switch, and jumped back in case the tug hadn't been enough to expose a hidden weakness in the connection. Then, something strange happened... Nothing. No greenish cascades of poo-brine. No plopping murky foam. No nothing. We were suddenly in the midst of the second most dreadful scenario possible when dealing with removing human waste from an aircraft (the first being when the plane opens up its bowels freely into a hose that wasn't properly connected) -- the pin was pulled, the grenade was thrown, but there was no explosion. Everyone stood frozen and eyed everyone else.Are you sure you pulled the pin?Which direction did you throw it?Do we go looking for it or just run?You threw it. You go check it out. All eyes simultaneously turned to the poor sap who had drawn the short straw and gotten stuck on lavs tonight. He approached the hose as if trying to sneak up on it and inspected it as if expecting a bomb to go off in his face. He unflipped and reflipped the switch several times. No explosion. He breathed a sigh of relief, and all the onlookers hoping for a casualty lost interest and wandered off. Maintenance was called. We all assumed it had frozen and didn't pay it much attention until... The mechanic pulled out the first neck pillow. Not one of the inflatable ones -- a full-fledged plush neck pillow, bloated and dripping excrement. Then the second one. And another. Another. Until he had removed 9 neck pillows sopping in shit and piss and blue juice. Now, let's analyze this: 1) The cost of 9 plush neck pillows is no small change. This was an investment. Even the cheapest plush neck pillows run upwards of $13 a pop. If the perpetrator bought them online, there was most likely a shipping fee tacked onto that. For the sake of argument and giving folks the benefit of the doubt, let's assume these were the most inexpensive neck pillows and that the perpetrator bought them at a 'brick and mortar' store or got free shipping online. That's still about $120 down the toilet. Yeah, I said it. 2) This was premeditated. No one just carries around 9 neck pillows. In order to check in on time, having already procured the neck pillows and somehow shoved them into a bag the size of the miniature carry-ons that will fit in the overhead bin of a small commuter plane, one would have had to plan at least several hours in advance. More likely, it was days or, in the case of having bought the neck pillows online, weeks before the flight that the perpetrator began planning this attack. 3) Somehow, this passenger managed to get 9 neck pillows on board a plane without drawing attention. This, in and of itself, is pretty impressive. However, getting all 9 of those neck pillows down the aisle and into the restroom unnoticed makes me question the observation skills of our crew members and other passengers. 4) Then, getting all 9 of those neck pillows to go down the toilet had to have taken a while and gotten pretty messy. 5) Finally, I cannot think of any problem in which the most logical available solution would involve shoving 9 neck pillows down the shitter of a commercial prop(eller) jet. The only thing that would make any sense is that it was a giraffe. Giraffes are terrorists.
Once, I when was painting my living room, I tried to spray off the paint roller I was holding with the hose on full blast -- not thinking about the consequences until the split second before the sidewalk, the side of my house, my bushes, and I got covered in bright red paint. I laughed so hard, I cried. Then I had one hell of a mess to clean up. Life has been kind of like that lately.
Having a 'crush' is an accurate term for the experience. Don't you think?I'm enjoying the rollercoaster ride of being human. Maybe 'enjoying' isn't the right word. But when I think about it -- the agony and the giddiness and the excitement and the nervousness and the anticipation of it all -- I can't help but smile. It's not always fun. But it sure is interesting.I got injured at work a few weeks ago and have been put on light duty, which, because of the physical nature of my job, has me doing something completely different and completely, utterly draining. I knew my job was badass, but I never realised just how much I loved it until I was no longer allowed to do it.I had no idea how much it was wearing on me until last night, after a particularly challenging day, when I hitched a ride on a coworker's tug down to the bag room. In that moment -- under the cloudy moonlit sky, the bitter cold wind stinging my face, the scent of jet fuel in my lungs -- the feeling of absolute freedom, combined with the knowledge that it was going to be all too brief, welled up and over.We were back inside before the tears had a chance to freeze.Beyond the East the sunrise,Beyond the West the sea,And East and West the wander-thirst that will not let me be...~Gerald Gould~
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