Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Things I Always Say

On this trip, I became aware that in addition to extemporaneous speech, I also repeat myself a lot on the plane. I've become a creature of stimulus/response, and here are a few of those pairs:

Someone orders water, no ice - Handing them a bottle, "That's its default position."
Someone has to duck to get into the plane - "It's bigger once you sit down."
Someone mentions the small cabin - "You should see our small plane."
Applause at the seatbelt demonstration - "I'll be here all week, be sure to tip your captain."
Compliments on the seatbelt demonstration - "Well, I teach the remedial classes, so..."
Someone asks me to do the seatbelt demonstration again - "Only on the Vegas flights."
Someone wearing a shirt like my uniform shirt - "Hey, nice shirt!"
I spill ice on someone - "Free ice!"
I drop a cup on someone - "Free cup!"
I drop a snack on someone - "Free snack!"
After I say, 'yes you can have some more X,' I realize I'm out - "When I said yes, what I really meant was no."

I also have several stock answers. When someone asks me what mountain that is out there, I always say Mount Rainier. If it's a gorge or depression, it's the Grand Canyon. If they ask me what time it is in the morning, it's 8:04. If it's night time, it's 10:56. When they ask me what state we're in, it's always Oregon. I used to say 'denial,' but I got tired of people not getting it. And once someone asked me what they use to de-ice the plane, and I said magma, thinking he would recognize it as a joke and say, "Ha ha no really." But he just nodded like it made perfect sense, and I couldn't figure out a way back in to tell him it was a joke. So I giggle now and then, thinking that eventually he's going to find out that magma is not used to de-ice planes, and I'm going to be nowhere near him when it happens.

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