Recently, I studied a foreign civilization: air travellers. They can be identified by more than just their frequent flyer cards, they have their own culture and language.
Here are some handy translations:
Gate Change: the cure for the common “finally figured out where I am”. Just when you think you are exactly where you need to be, you realize you are a bazillion concourses away and will have to break land speed records to get back up in the air.
Boarding: a method of establishing kinship with cattle, or when you want to combine asphyxiating claustrophobia with oppressive humidity and you aren’t sure how to make that happen in your life.
Middle: A seating arrangement that says “This is your captain speaking, with a message about theology. We heard you don’t believe in purgatory. We can help with that.”
Public address system: that small voice that clarifies things when you wonder what the hell just happened. It’s not your conscience or the disembodied voice of a narrator. It’s the grownups from Charlie Brown, describing whatever fresh hell is afoot.
“Please remain seated until your zone is called for boarding” was one such message, redundant given the insufficient seating for the sizeable and impatient crowd. Staff obviously missed the Hunger Games style rush to the “cornucopia” of limited seating. I shifted uncomfortably, with nobody willing to volunteer as tribute. I observed a small child in pyjamas hauling his little suitcase behind him and I wanted to hire him as my life coach. Clearly he knew how to get shit done. I watched him motor along, undeterred by the stagnant atmosphere that stifled my will to live. People who complain about recycled air in airport terminals take for granted that their air is at least moving.
Mine was not, on the occasion I took the screaming baby red eye, optimistically determined to sleep. Impeding my slumber was the weight of the recent beverage service on my bladder. The time it took to wake my seat mate exceeded the time I had before my bladder threatened to explode. Forget Bournoulli’s principle; this is the true algebra of air travel: the way deep sleepers fuck with your ability to not wet your pants. I partook in the “have to go pee now” conga line of other travellers similarly indisposed. I returned to my cocoon of awkward closeness to resume my qualitative analysis of the prevalence of antiperspirant use among the travelling public.
My drift to sleep was interrupted by the rhythmic flash of overhead lights, blinding rays cutting through the darkness. What ASSHOLE was screwing with the lights? I silently cursed the perpetrator of this inhumane intrusion. As I seethed in the glare of the flickering bulb, a flight attendant materialized. I breathed a sigh of relief, careful not to inhale the cloud of body odor emanating from the nearby passengers.
I hoped the flight attendant would speak to the offending party and remove the barrier to my slumber. “You buzzed?” he asked, gesturing to the armrest. The armrest covered with buttons. Buttons to summon the flight attendant and that, coincidentally, also controlled the overhead light systems. The one I had been bumping with my elbows, as I was jostled between sleeping strangers, creating the strobe effect that kept waking me. I was THAT ASSHOLE.
I pulled my elbows tightly to my sides, napping briefly before my arrival.
Just in time for a gate change.
Of course.