Archive for the ‘Ditties’ Category

Lest you think it wasn’t God’s intention for man to eat in the sky, there is biblical precedence for it. So it is written in Ezekiel 1:15:

 

And so it came to pass that Ezekiel saw the wheel

Way up in the middle of the air

And he saw that it was good

And was glad he had ordered the kosher meal

 

Dumb people (and there are far too many) often invoke Philistine logic when they say, “If man were meant to fly, he’d have wings.” Smart people (and there simply aren’t enough) counter, “Well we do have wings and they’re not so much God-given as they are Boeing-given.” And this discussion in comparative intelligence brings us to today’s topic: Air Fare, Pie in the Sky, Elevated and Plated. In other words, high-flyin’ airline dinin’.

 

Humans (which are found everywhere except for certain parts of Moscow) celebrate and appreciate the bonanza that food provides. Eating is such a vital event that a grateful public often takes a reverent moment to say grace before dining. Others adopt a more brutish view of the pre-meal benediction and gruffly declare, “OK peeps, dig in” or “Hey Brenda, you got any more a those hot sauce packets?” But regardless of whatever ceremony is performed before dining, most meals are taken in a chair while sitting at a table. And this is true whether dining in an airplane or in a kitchen. Again, in a biblical way; as above, so below. Except when you’re dining above, you’re 8 miles high and traveling at 450 kts, so it’s not exactly, “as above so below.” In any event, let’s examine the “above” part as we explore Fare in the Air.

 

 

A True Change in Cabin Pressure as Your Plane Transforms into a High Stress Restaurant

 

Once meal service is announced an aircraft converts from a sophisticated airborne passenger delivery system to a sophisticated airborne food delivery restaurant. Flight attendants transform into glorified waitresses working the front of the house and pilots on the flight deck become the kitchen staff, quietly managing the back of the house even though they have no duties as assigned. It’s a restaurant in the sky as its passengers become fuselage food fans. Meal service is a very welcome hour intrusion into a multi-hour flight. A complete distraction from your inner dialogue continually asking you, “Are we there yet?”

 

Are You a Fuselage Foodie? A Sampling of Airline Cuisine

 

Air Jordan

There’s a new Middle Eastern Airline called Air Jordan (not affiliated with Nike). They offer a Hummus Snack Tray that comes with dates. However, if you’re in a committed relationship and you don’t want any dates, you can order one with just crackers. Additionally, if you’re hummus-phobic, or, on the advice of a physician, are on a mashed chickpea-free diet, you can order your Hummus Snack Tray without a trace of enthusiasm.

 

Air Jordan is also experimenting with a regional take on the all-time breakfast favorite of ham and eggs. It’s seasoned for the Arabic tongue and is called Hamas and Eggs. A happy meal version for kids is flavored with storybook charm. It’s called Green Hamas and Eggs. There’s also the Bottomless Bowl of Hezbollah filled with shredded promises and candied Kalashnikovs. Air Jordan was said to be kitchen-testing a seafood dish but cancelled it after discovering the Jihad had had haddock. They continue to reach out to the Jewish state in a gastronomic way with Air Jordan CEO Phil Knight (not that Phil Knight) saying, “The thing of it is is, is Isreal willing to eat baba ganouje?”  

 

United Airlines

The kitchens of United Airlines are formulating a hemispherically appropriate continental breakfast. The continental breakfast items depend on the continent you happen to be flying over. If you’re over an ocean they won’t serve it at all, if you catch my continental drift. When United is flying from South America to North America, they sometimes abruptly swap out their continental breakfast causing a major continental plate shift from croissants and jam to yogurt parfaits. Oh and BTW, I encourage everyone to fly United, because no one wants to fly apart.

 

Aer Lingus

This Hibernian national airline serves a very traditional 7-course Irish meal. It’s a baked potato and a six pack. And it’s served without irony.

 

DebonAir

This opulent airline merged with the snooty French airline Savior Faire Air in 2018. They only offer 1^st class seating. Upon boarding, each passenger receives a complimentary jar of Grey Poupon. Oh, how the passengers love to tickle each other’s’ fancies by presenting an appetizing canapé to their seatmate and requesting, “Would you please Poupon this?” Very classy indeed.

DebonAir offers a Connoisseur’s Cheese Platter – 4 very soft cheeses wrapped in ridiculously thin aluminum foil that’s impossible to remove. The inability to remove this aluminum skin actually works in the passengers favor because it turns out the body needs trace amounts of aluminum in its diet, and you might as well get them in one big dose at 40,000 ft. than risk being caught licking your neighbor’s aluminum siding after midnight (been there). The cheese platter costs only $4.50 when purchased on the ground, but once the plane departs and climbs up into the stratosphere, so do the prices. Depending on how high the plane flies, costs can soar up to $18. At this price most cheese buyers become lactose intolerant and settle for the free pretzels instead.

 

China Air

They offer an all-to-authentic pupu platter. It’s fittingly served with buttered nose plugs and toilet paper napkins.

 

Vegan Airlines

Its menu is to DEI for (in the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion sense). Vegan Airlines signature dish is the Vegie Wedgie Salad consisting of Baby Lettuces, Impressionable Parsnips, Bicurious Broccoli and Gender Dysphoric Rhubarb. It’s usually served with a wink and a nod. Flavorless and unsatisfying low carbon footprint options are available: Watercress on Rice Cakes, Cous Cous Cous and Spilt Fritters (which is Spelt spelled wrong).

 

Ambiguous Air

This confused airline’s meal planners have devised a surf and turf befitting its’ dualistic status. This dish features a Large Small Mouth Bass, Jumbo Shrimp and Elongated Short Ribs. Served with a tall glass of melted ice, this entrée will leave you wondering, “Why does my credit score take a hit just because I apply for a credit card?” Ambiguous indeed.

 

Illuminating Ruminating

Sometimes the repetition of an extraordinary event makes the exceptional seem mundane – a case of familiarity breeding unexamined complacency. But maybe the next time you’re enjoying a savory hot meal in the comfort of a padded seat at 40,000 ft. hurtling through the stratosphere at 450 kts while 4 feet away on the outside of the thin aluminum skin protecting you it’s -40° and the wind howling at 80 kts, perhaps you’ll have a renewed appreciation for your extraordinary circumstance.

If at the dawn of aviation, cabin crew members were originally called flight attendants instead of stewardesses, the term flight attendant would be viewed as a derogatory term. Yet in a twist of semantics the reverse has happened today whereby the job descriptor stewardess is somehow seen as defamatory and the term flight attendant is viewed as some kind of heroic euphemism, riding in to save the poor stewardesses from belittling job title infamy.

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I do not view the term stewardess as throwing shade at our airborne cabin crew – far from it. I believe the term flight attendant is more derogatory than stewardess. And I further contend that had cabin crew members been called flight attendants originally, there would be a backlash against this disparaging term. I could foresee an anti-flight attendant notion growing in the public mind along these lines; as in, “Oh, so you’re saying these vital members of the cabin crew merely “attend” to things on a flight. Well, how dismissive and demeaning is that?”

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I also speculate that over time, the clamor to alter the demeaning term flight attendant would become loud enough that a public consensus might arise whereby people would agree that we should convey appropriate status on these critical airborne workers. They do much more than merely “attend” to matters of flight. In fact, they superintend and oversee matters vital to the smooth running of a flight 8 miles high at 450 kts. These aren’t hall monitors. They are stewards of air safety, communication and service. They manage the front of the house while pilots manage the back of the house. Yes, aviation can sometimes be compared to a high-flying restaurant and if you’ve ever had the Hummus Snack Tray over Salt Lake City, you know what I’m talking about.

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But what should the flight attendants’ new job title be? Perhaps we should elevate their station by calling them stewardesses and stewards. To me the term “stewardess” better reflects their lofty status and is more respectful than calling them mere “flight attendants.” To me, the job title “flight attendant” is one step removed from “bathroom attendant.” Whereas the job title of steward or stewardess has a more noble cachet, as in: “George Washington was a worthy steward of our nation’s ideals.”

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Of course, as mentioned above, we all understand that when it comes to these aviation job titles, the exact opposite occurred. The supposedly insulting job descriptor “stewardess” has been eschewed and replaced with today’s preferred term “flight attendant.” Even while writing this piece, Microsoft Word kept suggesting I substitute flight attendant where I had used the word stewardess. Clearly, they know which way the semantic winds blow.

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And so, it is for numerous incongruous instances like the one elucidated above, that children think adults are cray cray and shouldn’t really be in charge of anything, let alone making job title rules. Allow me to take a moment to cite some other reasons why kids think adults are cray cray:

• Obviously, there is only one consciousness we all share, but adults have decided to express it in over 10,000 religions…and not one of them wants you to have any fun…except Disney, and they aren’t even tax exempt.
• Everyone agrees that Shakespeare’s plays are magnificent theatrical treasures, but few, if any adults, are actually willing to sit through one. What does that say to Jonas and Kylie?
• Kids also don’t understand why they must learn algebra when they’ll never have to use it…come to think of it, adults think the same thing…so why are we learning it?

I’m a distracted writer who has derailed his own story with talk of kids’ impressions of adult foibles. So let me get back on track here by reiterating that it is a peculiar twist of semantic fate that the term flight attendant has replaced stewardess as the preferred term in referring to a cabin crew member, when it just as easily could’ve been the other way around, if only they were originally called flight attendants.

 

 

 

 

1. Here are some of my favorite numbers:
Novocain, Lidocaine…
Before you continue, you should know the “b” in numbers is silent.

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2.  There are no recorded cases of Siamese twins playing Hide and Seek.
Or if there was, the game was over really fast.

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3.   Remember the Fonts from Happy Days?
He was a really cool type.

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4. A E
IOU
And sometimes.
Why?

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5. July is Leaf Blower Awareness month. So is Aug, Sept, Oct…

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I dislike dyslexics. I dislike lichens.
I like relinquishing licorice. I like relishing liquor.
However clever, I can’t stand to sit.

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All part of my “If You’re Not Going to Think About It, I Will” series

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Do you think the actor Treat Williams’s parents looked at their newborn son and thought, “Should we call him John or Treat? Hmmm. Let’s go with Treat?”

And the name served him well except for Halloween, when he’d get all tongue-tied at the door and say, “Trick or Me.”

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A band of Spaniards had come all the way from La Mancha to seek out the young Jesus, who was then ministering in Galilee. Over hill and dale they searched for the Messiah.
Spotting the Lord and his entourage walking in the distance, their leader beckoned to him:

The Man of La Mancha: Hey Zeus! Hey Zeus! Is that you?

Jesus and his apostles stopped and addressed the yearning acolytes. Peter gently corrected the man of La Mancha, “My friend, that is not Zeus. It’s Jesus. He is God, but he’s far from the Greek mythological God you’re confusing him with. Your group must be from Athens.

The Man of La Mancha: No sir. We’re from Spain and I know that’s Hey Zeus.

Peter: Hey Zeus? Oh, you mean Jesus. I get it. You speak Spanish and pronounce Jesus as Hey Zeus with a J that sounds like an H. Got it. Hey, be careful with that. I mean don’t go calling St. Joe, St. Hoe.

Just finished watching the Mormon version of The Bachelor. Wow!
He narrowed it down to 4 women, and then married all of them.