A Plain (Pain) Trip

Recently I was on a jumpy flight from Paris to Mumbai. The flight was delayed (as usual) and I had to spend a lot of time at Charles De Gaulle airport (motto : We've got the gaul!)
The French language is funny for a person who has spent his life speaking languages like Marathi and Hindi, where the word is pronounced as a combination of the alphabets. As in, the word is pronounced as the individual alphabets in a sequence. The French language disregards many of the alphabet and consequently, this leads to a lot of confusion for travellers. Consider the prime example of Champs Elysees which is pronounced as Shawz Elize (I am not sure if I have got that right. Try searching for "pronunciation of Champs Elysees" on google.)

So, anyway, coming back to the flight. As usual, I have managed to stray from the topic at hand. I was on my way back to Mumbai after attending an International Trade Fair called (really!) BALLS. This was a convention for Steel Ball Bearing Manufacturers (motto : We've got the world by the balls!) And, as I've already stated, this flight was jumpy. This caused some kids on the flight... Correction, this caused all the kids (and there was a large number of them) to feel queasy and loud. In case you don't know what feeling loud is like, try travelling on a jumpy flight with atleast twenty three children below the age of eight. Believe me, you will need hearing aids for the rest of your life. The damage caused to my ear drums was more severe than the one I had sustained when a friend forced me to attend a rock concert without ear muffs on.

If there was anything worse than the jumpy kids, who were feeling loud, it had to be their parents. Most of the parents were sound asleep and some of them even had the gall to snore loudly! It was outrageous. They should have probably been soothing their children instead of getting some shut eye. Some of them were holding whispered conversations. I can imagine what they might have been talking about.

Wife : "Honey, Ashley is at it again. She is shouting her lungs out. All the passengers are staring at us. Why don't we do something?"
Husband : "Yes. Get some sleep. And try snoring. We wouldn't want the passengers to feel deprived, would we? They are probably still wondering why we aren't asleep. If we don't fall asleep soon, they will personally come over and ensure that we are asleep, so that they can then grind their respective teeth in seething frustration over their inability to reduce the amount of noise on this plane"

Most of the "Regular Flying" customers were already grinding their teeth. They were probably used to this kind of a thing. I wasn't. It's not everyday that you get to visit Paris to see BALLS. I was really upset and decided to give atleast one parent of a jumpy child a piece of my mind.

Me : "Would you please quieten your child?"

Parent Of Rowdy Kid (PORK) : "Snore..."

Me : "Excuse me! I am talking to you. Please ensure that your child is seated and that he isn't making any noise. It's causing damned inconvenience to the other passengers..."

PORK : "Are you the airhostess? Oh, you are an airhost, eh? Please get me a glass of water. Thank you"

Me : "I am not the airhost or airhostess or the pilot. I am just an inconvenienced passenger and I am here to ask you to silence your child..."

PORK (angrily): "You woke ME up to tell me THAT!"

Me : "Well, I am sorry for that. But just in case you haven't noticed, nobody else is getting any sleep, thanks to your ward"

PORK : "So? What do you suggest?"

Me : "I suggest that you use the paper napkins the nice flight attendants have given and shove them into his mouth to stop him from shouting out loud. Or you could try strangling him with the beautiful necklace your wife is wearing..."

PORK (handing me the necklace) : "Good. You go ahead and do it. And when you are done, get me the glass of water... Snore..."

This left me feeling stupid and a bit richer, as I now held a pearl necklace in my hand. But money wasn't on my mind at that particular point of time. Sleep was. And the darned kids were ruining my forty winks. In a final fit of rage and frustration, I called the flight attendant.

Me : "Could you please take these kids someplace else and have them make a little less noise?"

Flight ATtendanT (FATT): "I am sorry sir, that is impossible to do"

Me : "Impossible? Surely, you have been trained to handle this sort of stuff?"

FATT : "Sir, the noise of the kids is soothing to the captain. He prefers it to the whine of the turbine. As it is, there was some problem with the turbines and he has had to shut them down. One hell of a noise they were making. As long as the kids are shouting, all the passengers will focus their energies on finding a way to mutilate the vocal chords of these kids and nobody will realise that the plane is going down. In the meantime, the pilot can radio the Air Traffic Controller and ask for directions to use his and our parachutes. Have a nice flight, Sir!"

THE END?