Saturday, July 28, 2007

The 'I Dare You Stare'

You know how the phrase 'please wait until the aircraft has come to a complete stop' has become part of the public consciousness? Well, that's because we have to say it so much, and that's because important businessmen always jump up during any moment the plane is actually stopped on the runway and run to the front, thinking they'll get ahead of the competition by about three feet. Technically we're supposed to make an announcement asking them to stay seated when they do this, but I usually don't, and when I go to court over someone's demise, I'm going to cite the seven times I told them to stay in their seats prior to their fatal deceleration trauma.
Just lately I have developed a technique wherein 95% of the passengers stay in their seats until the seatbelt light is off. I call it the 'I Dare You Stare.' As we're taxiing in and some folk start to look like they're gonna make a break for it, I lean forward and stare menacingly at them, using telepathy to dare them to get up. Most of them are telepathy-proof, however, because you need a brain to recieve telepathic information. That's why the stare is there. And one or the other almost always works.
Occasionally someone who is telepathy-and-stare-proof will stand up while the plane is moving and start rummaging through the bins. Usually these folk are sound-proof too, and do not respond when I warn them over the intercom to stay seated. But no one is embarrassment proof. I only warn three times, and then, as I have done on one occasion, I ask the surrounding passengers to point at the offender until they realize their jackass status and sit the hell down.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

oh thank heavens you're back!!!
i've been checking the news for plane crashes or lay-offs for weeks now!

9:28 PM  

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