Tales in Hot Pink is a weekly column by our fearless leader. Like all management, he is not required to tell the truth, represent himself accurately, or trouble himself with reality in any way. And, in keeping with our corporate style, he is not bound by good taste or specific subject, so he may ramble wildly from topic to topic. As his employees, we encourage this, because the day is long and we are frequently bored.
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Dying in Coach (Contains some colorful language. If you are easily offended, click here to go to a hardcore porn site.)
I sat quietly in my seat, trying to appear calm. I was flipping through the in-flight magazine. It was upside down, but I didn't notice. The passengers on either side of me, arm rest hogs, were asleep, oblivious that we were moments away from tumbling from the sky to a squishy fate below. "Excuse me, stewardess," I whispered, getting her attention as she walked by. "At what point do you expect the fuselage to tear apart like wet toilet paper?" She smiled at me politely. She looked like she was in soft focus, a haze of blonde hair and Eternity by Calvin Klein. I decided she must have been the most popular girl in her high school, and now she was doomed to die a horrible death at 35,000 feet. "What does fuselage mean?" she asked. "Thank you," I said, and sat back in my seat. It's called turbulence. It's what happens when the air outside, pissed off because you were too lazy to drive, tosses you around like underwear in the spin cycle. Most people don't understand this, but Mother Nature wants to kill you. She tries like hell from the day you're born. She sends torrents of rain, shafts of lightning, tunnels of wind and dust, hoping she'll get lucky and nail your ass good. And she sends turbulence. She loves turbulence. I think she likes to experiment: she wants to see how much stress a rickety 747 that was built in the mid-sixties can take when she turns on the sky like a blender making daiquiris. Little human daiquiris. "Wake up," I said, nudging the person next to me. "Wake up." He stirred, and glanced over at me with sleepy eyes. "What?" he asked. "We're going to die soon," I told him. "I thought you'd want to be awake for it." He looked at me for a moment. His hair was angled skyward on one side like a skateboard ramp, pressed into shape by the pillow he was lucky enough to receive. "Thanks," he said. "No problem," I said. He curled into his pillow again and went back to sleep. "Sir?" I heard a soft voice call. I turned. The most popular girl in school had called for reinforcements. Another stewardess was smiling patiently at me. "Is everything all right?" "Oh yes," I said. "Just reading a magazine," I explained, lifting it to show her. A giant bead of perspiration rolled off my nose and slapped onto the glossy pages with a snap. "Just reading a magazine, waiting to die." "Would you like something to drink?" she asked. "Something to relax you?" "That would be nice," I said. "Rubbing alcohol, please? Perhaps I can go blind and that way, and I won't see the ground rushing up to meet us." "Oh sir," she laughed lightly, "you won't see the ground rushing up to meet us." "I won't?" "Of course not," she said, handing me a small vial of vodka and a glass. "We're over water." "Water?" I repeated, a little too loudly. The passenger in front of me turned and gave me a nasty look. I lowered my voice. "Stewardess," I explained with a whisper, "The landing gear won't work in the water." "I'm sure the captain is more than prepared to make a water landing if it's necessary," she tried to reassure me. "Has he done it often?" I asked, horrified I was on a plane with a pilot who habitually ditched his planes in oceans. "Our flight officers are well trained," she said, and handed me another vial of vodka, realizing I required heavy medicine. "Don't get me wrong," I said, trying to revert to my calm, cool, I-don't-care-if-we-die demeanor, "the fact that my seat cushion is also a floatation device gives me no end of reassurance," I patted my seat as if it were an old friend, "but what about the sharks?" "What sharks?" she asked. "The sharks below," I snapped. "The sharks that have been following this damned plane since we left the airport!" "There are no sharks in Lake Erie," the stewardess told me. "Sharks can smell blood," I told her. I realized I was shouting, so I lowered my voice again. I didn't want the rest of the passengers to be alarmed to find out they were airborne dinner entrees. "They can smell it from miles away," I continued quietly. "And they'll come. Believe me. Lake or no lake, they will come." She handed me another vial of vodka. "Just try and relax sir," she said. "We'll be in Chicago shortly." "Fine," I said, trying to recapture the essence of being unconcerned. I smiled as I twisted the cap off my Absolut. The sides of my mouth twitched uncontrollably, but she was convinced enough to leave. Five minutes and three samplers of vodka later I stood and made a short announcement. "If I could have everyone's attention please," I said. I tried to appear calm and managerial. "We should be tumbling from the sky into the shark-filled waters below at any moment now, so I'd like to take this opportunity to let everyone know that I happen to be the CEO of a very important company and my survival is essential. So please pass me your floatation devices and be sure to get the fuck out of my way when I head for the exits." Apparently, losing your shit on an international flight is an effective way of getting a seat in first class. You get shackled to the chair, but you're heavily tranquilized so you don't even notice. The extra leg room is refreshing enough to make up for it. And frankly, dying isn't nearly as frightening when you know you're going first class.
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| A collection of more diseased madness below. Check
out a few, and then buy The Reluctant
Prophet. We won't tell
anyone what you spent your grocery money on. No one needs to
know. We can keep it just between us.
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