Some weeks ago, I went on my first flight. It was also the first time I'd left my beloved Dixie and even ventured beyond the confines of my time zone. Needless to say, it was thrilling. I got to hang out with my beloved fiancee, Weishan, and meet for the very first time my good friend Katie. All in all, a thrilling excursion. Presented below, a vaguely 'dramatically enhanced' and somewhat semi-accurate retelling of my trip.
It was the late afternoon. I sat at the United terminal at Atlanta's Heartsfield International Airport, nervously biding my time before boarding. I turned to my friend and traveling companion, Elisabeth. Deeply involved in her laptop game, I could see that I would have to find my own entertainment before the flight. However, as shouting 'bomb' and stealing a jet were out of the question, I stuck to bothering Elisabeth with niggling little factoids and banal topics of conversation. It was like our constant texting, but in real life; because that's exactly what it was.
I had found myself, through strange luck and the utmost of Elisabeth's benevolence, with a free plane ticket to fly to the San Francisco bay. It probably helped that this is where my fiancee lives and Elisabeth, with her insatiable lust for exceptional breasts and Asian women, has something of a crush on my wife to be. Whatever the circumstances, I was allowed passage into this terminal, to this flight to the other side of this great nation. Somewhere along the chain of command, it would seem, someone had miscalculated greatly.
I was shocked, actually. I had somehow made it through the TSA without provoking a headlines making incident, nor had I alleged that I'd shout 'rape' the moment one of the uniformed thugs frisked my junk. This was unprecedented, and the minute I was stuffed into a special wheelchair and eased down the aisles of the regional jet that would convey me to the airfield in Houston, I decided to congratulate myself on my restraint with a $20 cocktail. However, there was a true and pressing problem with this course of action.
For whatever fiendish reason, some debased bastard in some insulated Washington law office - presumably the same place where they wrote the Hughes Amendment and thus finally murdered The Great God of Fun - decided that booze could not be served until after takeoff. This infuriated me, but now I was beyond the hall monitor like gaze of Atlanta's finest. No, I was in the big leagues. The FAA and the DHS were in charge on the streamlined silver snake that was my conveyance. The booze sweats began to sink in, a scream of rage welled up in my lungs. Bad enough they wouldn't let a man bring aboard a bit of herb, but this? It was the height of fascist excess, and any of a number of suits in our company could be air marshals.
"My god, when will we get in the air?" I asked Elisabeth, not five minutes after I was seated. The ground had taken on a sinister and unsettling vibe, akin to the shackles of a great slaving ship. The oppressive air filled me with ominous terrors. All at once, there was a great thundering. The air outside began to darken as lightening filled the skies. The runway itself splintered and cracked, lava issuing forth from the ground. It was pure bedlam. All at once, a great moaning began as surely the grizzly reaper had come to claim me. There was a tremendous shaking, as though the ground itself refused to have anything to do with me. This was no ordinary decay of American infrastructure. This was the end!
The moaning grew in intensity. I felt I could scream before I was jerked back to reality. We had just touched off. The ground fell beneath us as I whiped my brow gingerly. Still alive. Such rapturous joy. "We made it." I said confidently as Elisabeth rolled her eyes at me. I was pleased at this reaction and once the plane lurched up to cruising altitude, I tucked into my much deserved booze.
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