Air Safety


From time to time the usually well mannered modern mother may find herself in a situation upon which she may look back with a certain amount of chagrin.

The story may go something like this.  The well mannered, financially savvy father may have found a wonderful deal online whereby if he applied for a credit card through a certain, shall we say, lesser know airline he could then fly his family of four to and from Florida for the low, low price of $89.99 or something like that.  And so, while applauding her beloved spouse's economic acumen, the normally well mannered mother (who is admittedly a nervous flyer at the best of times) might have found this a bit unnerving.  Her jittery state was in no way assuaged upon arriving at the check in counter and finding herself surrounded by persons who looked like they might have needed to let their parole officers know they were intending to leave town.  Nor did it help when the cheery airline employee asked "Would you like to use our check-in kiosk or are you paying cash?"  Cash?  It also seemed a bit unusual that so many people had packed their belongings in large trash bags and were using plastic grocery bags for carry-ons.  Yet, one does not like to judge a book by its cover.

So our intrepid travelers move on through security.  Despite all the recent media hype this might be quite painless.  Is it possible, wonders the modern mother, that terrorists are only interested in targeting legitimate, name-brand airlines?  With forty minute to board the modern mother might decide a medicinal Bloody Mary might be just what the doctor ordered.  Nothing like a little Dutch courage and next thing you know the modern mother and her family are all aboard and ready to go.

Fast forward 3 hours and approximately as many more medicinal Blood Marys later.  It has been a pleasant enough flight and the air hostess has now asked everyone to prepare for landing.  The plane is descending rapidly when suddenly two rows in front of the usually well mannered mother there is mamba music.  Some person has left on his phone.  Now we all make mistakes, and the modern mother likes to believe that if the offender had simply turned the phone off that would have been the end of the story.  But what does this person do?  He starts TALKING on the phone AS THE PLANE IS LANDING!  Decorum aside, that is DANGEROUS. Who knows how much attention air traffic pays to these no-name airlines?  What if signals got crossed and the flight is run into by a real plane like Delta or US Air?  In any event, it is at this point that a normally well-mannered mother might decide to say something very loudly in an otherwise silent airplane cabin such as,  "STOP TALKING and TURN OFF YOUR PHONE! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?  THE PLANE IS LANDING!"  And when he continues on the line "WOULD YOU PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR PHONE NOW!" or something like that.

Of course the instant the well mannered mother has succeeded in her reprimand and realizes the entire plane is now staring at her, she would turn bright red and be quite embarrassed even if she has saved countless lives.  Because one never likes to make a scene.



Photo courtesy of Yahoo Images

3 comments:

Jennifer said...

Hummm...is one speaking from experience?

Kristin said...

Brilliant! Thanks for the laugh this morning.

Deb said...

I am neither well-mannered nor a mother but I have done precisely that on planes (the telling people to turn off their damn phones/electronic devices when the plane is descending, it drives me CRAZY that they would be willing to risk people's lives for something so selfish and inane).

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