Turbulence and the Toll Booth

By all accounts, turbulence doesn’t cause airplanes to crash. You keep telling yourself the rattling is just the beverage cart. You know it is not the peanuts…there are no peanuts on airplanes anymore. There are, however, applications for credit cards, but they don’t make much noise. This is what I was thinking about at 35,000 feet last night.


Then of all things, this happens. The guy sitting next to me ordered a coffee with a lot of cream and sugar and says, “Otherwise it tastes like coffee,” and cues his chuckle. I of course want to cry and scream at him, “Don’t you read my blog! Maybe coffee isn’t your drink!” I decide to let him live although I am dying to ask him “Then why in the hell are you getting coffee?” I consider that the answer to that question may hold some profound philosophical statement.

For instance, what if his answer was “it’s not the taste, but it’s not NOT the taste.” That answer would stupefy me. In fact, It might cause me to reconsider my whole philosophy on life…whatever that may be. But I would think that if I was outsmarted on the coffee issue, I may have tacked wrong coming out of the Marquesas Islands en route to Enlightenment Through Latte Bay.

Then I thought…maybe he did that to specifically irritate me. Maybe he does know me. Maybe he does read my blog. Maybe that stupid little hit counter is actually in hundred millions and I am close to a billion hits. Maybe when he gets home he is going tell his wife, “Honey, you will never believe this. I sat next to that asshole Dave Meyer on the plane, you know the one who whines and bitches on his blog. I told the flight attendant I needed lots of cream and sugar because I didn’t want my coffee to taste like coffee. You should have seen the look in his eyes…it was pure fear! I loved it!”

(One more minor airline observation. I think landing surprises some people. I say this because when it comes time to disembark, many seem completely baffled that they must now get all their shit and get off the plane. It’s sort of like when people pull up to toll booths and seem to say, “Oh, I have to pay? How much? Let me look around for some loose change.”)