The following is a collection of thoughts about air travel that I typed into my iPad’s note program or twiddled into my iPhone’s Twitter client while making my way through the flying process this past weekend. They are in no particular order and have not been edited in any meaningful way from when they were first written, and that should probably be warning enough.
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It may be the defining mark of a super-advanced civilization that we’ve managed to take something as staggeringly amazing as brazenly hurtling through the sky at hundreds of miles per hour in a giant metal bird, and made it into the most dull, frustrating, and claustrophobic experience imaginable.
I’m a small guy, and those airplane bathrooms are uncomfortably tight even for me. What to even modestly large people do, let alone the grossly obese? Hold it in? As if this weren’t all awful enough.
I think airplane ventilation systems spray doses of grouchy gas.
Hey, congrats for being in first class and generally for being who you are, first-classies.
I’m sure that first class is a nicer experience, but walking by those seats as I seek my own, I can’t help but think that it really doesn’t look *that* much better. But I guess on an airplane, an extra 3 inches in any direction is like a freaking presidential suite.
I kind of miss my Kindle Fire. It doesn’t come close to the usefulness, power, or beauty of the iPad, but it was *soooo cute*!
“Fuselage” is a hilarious word that doesn’t at all sound like what it means. If I ever write a novel, I’m going to have to have a character named “Monsieur Fuselage.”
What’s that little fin sticking out at the end of the wings for? Is it functional, or is it purely to add a dash of badly-needed awesome?
Seated near the front of the plane, I had no bones about using the restroom at the front by first class. But I just saw a guy even closer to the front than me, but not in first class, go all the way to the back restroom, like there was an economic force field keeping him from using the one in front — which is exactly the same.
What would be worse, crashing into water or onto land? I would think land, because a water landing would, I presume, be softer. But I can’t swim, so I’d probably be screwed anyway. I don’t believe for a dead second that those seats can be used as flotation devices. PROVE IT, I SAY. LEMME SEE YOU FLOAT.
I used to find the pressure fluctuations when during altitude changes nauseating and unsettling. Now I think they’re kind of groovy. And when my ears pop, it’s like suddenly gaining awesome new hearing powers.
The buzzer goes off at baggage claim and it’s like feeding time at the trough.
FACT: Airlines intentionally forbid you to use electronics during takeoff and landing in order to prop up the dead-tree print industry.
You know what’s kind of fun about air travel? Fucking nothing.
Near-Earth Object 