United Airlines spares
its attendants the drudgery of repeatedly demonstrating flight safety warnings
and techniques. Instead, they engage a safety video that plays on a small
screen attached to the seat back in front of you.
In this video,
passengers in various states of emergency (water landing, pressure loss; “we
are presently out of red wine”), very calmly and happily do horrible but
necessary things to save their lives.
For instance, here is a
mother and daughter chatting away happily. Suddenly, two oxygen masks drop from
the ceiling in front of their faces. This means, of course, that all oxygen has
been sucked from the plane. No matter. Why be alarmed? In fact, the mother and
daughter are apparently quite delighted for the interruption.
(In my opinion, the
unruffled demeanor of the air emergency victims in this video reflects poorly
upon United Airlines. How is it that passengers could meet the sudden
appearance of oxygen masks with such indifference—nay, outright felicity?
Apparently, the advent of life-saving apparatuses such as oxygen masks on
United Airlines flights is as common as the appearance of beverage carts.
“Hello. Welcome aboard
United Airlines. We are completely out of oxygen. Would you care for a Sprite?”
The mother smiles as
she places the elastic band of the oxygen mask carefully around her head. The
startling word here is, “carefully.” To my amazement, the woman tries hard to avoid
displacing a single strand of her hair. How certain people be so self-aware in
the face of such peril, is cause for wonder. I can picture myself
remaining calm in such a situation, but I’m not sure I would dig out my
lint-roller and de-fuzz my sports coat.
This woman’s young daughter
is also delighted at the sudden pressure drop, the lack of oxygen, and the fact
that her mother is obeying flight safety instructions to the letter, including
putting her mask on first, before assisting her. The child is three
shades of blue before the mother tends to her mask, but that’s okay. The three shades are a cute combination. These two debilitated yet happy passengers follow every airline rule, including that which prohibits tampering with or disabling lavatory smoke detectors.
But now, the flight has
a worse problem The plane has crash landed into the water! At least there is
oxygen aboard, but that is small consolation when the airplane is floating somewhere
between San Francisco and Honolulu .
The ever-present United Airlines camera now focuses on an extremely attractive young lady who has
already located her life vest (she knows it is located beneath her seat, smart girl) and is
now placing it around her neck and preparing to inflate it. Success! Like the
victim before her, she has managed to accomplish this task without displacing a single strand of beautiful, shiny, voluminous, protein-rich,
brunette hair. I am happy for her, and she is clearly happy for herself.
But now, a dilemma! There
are two ways to inflate the life vest: either by pulling down on a red tab, or
manually inflating it through a plastic blow-tube. This woman does not take
chances; she has a “dual-inflator” personality, and will cover her bases.
She pulls the red tag and purses her full, luscious lips, to blow
additional air into her bright yellow vest.
Although it has been forty-five
minutes since watching this terrifying yet entertaining video (I am
still on the flight, a quarter of the way between Las Vegas and Houston), I can
still see the voluptuous red kissing organs of this spectacularly good-looking
air disaster victim, pursing and puckering around the plastic
inflation tube.
With two delicate,
scented breaths (at least I am assuming they are scented; they are clearly delicate), she has inflated the rubber-duckie-colored life-saving device to
full capacity.
Next stop: The Pacific
Ocean!
I wish I could handle
life’s little curve balls with the calm, graceful aplomb of these air disaster
heroines. From whence comes such quiescence? Are they members of the
body of Christ? Friends of the pilot? Angels in the guise of women? Professional
swimmers? I can only guess. I can only pray for similar peace, in similar
circumstance.
In the meantime, even
though my flight is still in the air with all its oxygen, I believe I will head for the lavatory and disable the smoke detector there—just for the hell of it.
