Bad Habits

by Dave Barry

  While Robert was running around the airport looking for electrical outlets to stick his fingers into, an airlines person arranged to put us on a plane bound for St. Louis. We were not really interested in going to St. Louis, because the principal tourist attraction there is an arch.

  I once paid money and waited on line to go up to the top of this arch, and when I finally got there, I realized that (a) St. Louis looks basically the same from the top of the arch as from on the ground, only flatter; and (b) I had no way of knowing whether the people who built this arch were serious, competent arch builders or merely close friends and relations of the mayor whose arch would collapse at any moment. So I got back down, and have felt no great need to go to St. Louis since. But the airlines person assured us that St. Louis is in the same general direction as California. I think he mainly wanted to get Robert out of the airport.

  The flight to St. Louis was uneventful, except that Robert and several other children were much more disruptive than terrorist hijackers and a passenger at the back of the plane died in what I believe was an unrelated incident. Also, my wife was fairly nervous. She doesn’t believe that planes can actually fly, on the grounds that they are enormous objects filled with people, suitcases, and airline food, which is a very heavy kind of food, the idea being that if the passengers are given food that takes a long time to chew, they won’t get bored. Despite my wife’s concerns, we made it to St. Louis, where the airlines personnel, in another commercial-aviation mystery, put us in the first-class section of a plane bound for California. First class is for people who have paid a lot of extra money so they won’t have to sit in the same section as small children. Robert sensed this immediately and went into Extended Public Behavior Mode, a mode that baffles medical science because in it a child can cry for more than forty-five minutes without inhaling. Robert wanted the stewardess to open the airplane door, only we were 35,000 feet in the air. After a while, I got the impression the stewardess was seriously considering opening the door for him anyway.

  Eventually we got to California and saw the trees. They were large and red, just as we had been told. I liked them better than the St. Louis arch, because you didn’t have to go up in them. Robert liked them because they were surrounded by reddish, clingy dirt that you can get into your hair and diaper really easily.

  We also drove down the Pacific coast on a winding road that offered many spectacular views that I couldn’t look at for fear I would plunge the car into the ocean. Fortunately, my wife took many pictures, and I intend to look at them once we save up enough money to have them developed.

  We planned to end our vacation in Los Angeles, but we never actually located it. We’d get on a large road and follow the signs that said “Los Angeles,” but we’d always wind up in some place whose name ended in the letter a, such as Pomona and Ventura, filled with stores selling waterbeds. I’m sure Los Angeles was around there somewhere, because you’d need a city with a large population to support a waterbed industry that big.

  We did find Disneyland. Disneyland is basically an enormous amusement park, except that, thanks to the vision and creative genius of the immortal Walt Disney, it has clean rest rooms. There are lots of simulated things to do in Disneyland. We went on a simulated paddle-wheel riverboat ride through a simulated wild frontier. On the simulated riverbanks, we saw a scene in which simulated evil Indians had shot a simulated arrow through the chest of a simulated white settler. Farther on, we saw some more simulated Indians; the riverboat announcer identified these as good Indians. I strongly suspect they had been installed after the evil Indians, when the Disneyland executives decided they ought to present a more balanced picture. We never saw any evil white settlers.

  The most exciting part of Disneyland for Robert was whenhe he met Mickey Mouse. Robert had seen mice, but they were small and naked, so when he was suddenly confronted with this mouse who was wearing a suit and whose head was the size of a refrigerator carton, he was very concerned. He still talks about it. “That big mouse,” he says. He’ll probably carry the memory for the rest of his life. Someday he may even sue.

  Finally, it was time to leave sunny California, so we got on another plane that did not leave at the time shown on our tickets. But it also didn’t stop in St. Louis, so we were pleased. We plan to go again sometime, when Robert has reached a more appropriate age, such as forty.

  The Plane Truth

  There are many things you can do during a long airplane flight to take your mind off the fact that you are several miles up in the air in a heavy object built and operated by people you don’t even know, people who could well be insane careless suicidal drug addicts. For one thing, you can listen to the Safety Lecture given by the flight attendants (who were known as “stewardesses” before some of them became males) just before the plane takes off. The flight attendants demonstrate the safety features of the plane, the main one being little plastic bags that pop out of the ceiling when the plane starts to crash. You’re supposed to put a bag over your mouth and breathe from it; this ensures that you will have an adequate supply of oxygen until the plane hits the ground at three or four hundred miles an hour. Another safety feature is that the seats float, so the airline can retrieve them if the plane Crashes into the ocean.

  When you get right down to it, the Safety Lecture is a silly idea.

  I mean, if the passengers really thought the plane was going to crash, they wouldn’t get on it in the first place, let alone learn how to get an adequate oxygen supply on the way down. As a result, most passengers pay no attention whatsoever to the safety lecture. The flight attendants know this, and, out of sheer boredom, they long ago stopped reading the Official Safety Lecture Script. Next time you’re on a plane, listen closely to what they actually say:

  “Hi, I’m Debbie, the chief flight attendant, and on behalf of the entire crew I’d like to welcome you aboard Flight 302 to Bermuda. Much of our flight will be over water, so I’d like to remind you that if we do crash, there is an excellent chance that those of us who survive will be eaten by sharks. Please note that various windows are designated as emergency exits, the kind that have been known to pop open for no good reason at extremely high altitudes. Now if you will look at the front of the cabin, one of the flight attendants will demonstrate how to seal Tupperware containers. Thank you and we hope you enjoy the flight.”

  After the Safety Lecture comes the takeoff, which is terrifying until you realize that the pilot has probably taken off thousands of times without a mishap, which means that the odds of a mishap occurring get better every time. Once you’re in the air, you get the Pilot’s Message:

  “Good afternoon, this is Pilot Horvel Grist speaking. My copilot and I are up here with a whole batch of dials and gauges and controls of every kind, but everything seems to be pretty much the way they described it in Pilot School. We’ll be cruising along at an altitude of thirty-eight thousand knots, and we should reach our destination just about on schedule, after which we’ll circle it for five or six hours. That large object we’re passing over right now is Pittsburgh. Or the Grand Canyon. We’ll let you know once we pin it down.”

  Sometimes the pilot lets you listen in on his conversations with Air Traffic Control. Pilots are always talking to Air Traffic Control to make sure they go in the right directions and don’t whack into anything in midair. These conversations are conducted in crisp, professional language:

  PILOT: Come in, Air Traffic Control. This is a great big jet up in the sky.

  AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: A great big what?

  PILOT: Jet.

  AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: Oh, jet. I thought you said pet. I was picturing this huge Russian wolfhound whizzing around up there.

  PILOT (panicking): Did you say there’s a huge Russian missile in the air?

  AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER (Screaming): My God! There’s a huge Russian missile in the air! Somebody notify the Strategic Air Command!

  PILOT: I’m going to try to land on the Interstate.

  Another fun
thing to do during long plane trips is read the paperback books they sell in airports. There are three kinds:

  Spy thrillers, in which evil people, usually Nazis left over from world War II, nearly blow up the world or kill the President or the Pope. If airport books are any indication, there are at least 450,000 evil Nazi World War II geniuses still at large, many of them with atomic laser cannons. Look for a large swastika on the cover; this is the publishing industry’s way of letting you know it’s a fun book.

  Supernatural thrillers, in which the devil possesses people. Possession by the devil used to be fairly rare—I remember when it was just that little girl in The Exorcist—but these days it’s as common as strep throat. Before long, we’ll have special schools for possessed people, and the government will start requiring large corporations to hire them.

  Dirty books, in which you can turn to any page at random and start reading, because you already know what’s going to happen, so the only question is how many times. Dirty-book characters live lives that differ substantially from yours and mine. For example, if you walk into a restaurant, you will sit down, order dinner, eat, pay and leave. Here’s what happens to a dirty-book character in a restaurant:

  John glanced up from the menu and suddenly realized, as six statuesque waitresses and two slim Siamese busboys sidled up to him, that he was the lone customer in the restaurant. “We have a special tonight,” said one of the waitresses, gesturing toward the steam table.

  The only other way to pass the time on long plane flights is to get hijacked by armed fanatic terrorists. If you have no armed fanatic terrorists on your flight, you can liven things up yourself by making clever hijacking jokes. For example, when the flight attendants serve dinner, you can stand up and wave your chicken pie aloft, announcing in a loud voice that it is actually an explosive device that you plan to detonate unless the plane goes to Zaire. The airplane crew will find this a very amusing diversion from the boring routine, and will give you lots of extra attention. Another benefit is that you won’t have to eat the chicken pie, which probably tastes like an explosive device anyway.

  Destination: Maybe

  I fly a lot, because of the nature of my job. I’m a gnat.

  Ha ha. Just a little humor there to introduce today’s topic, which is air travel. As a business person, I have to travel by air a lot because modern corporations have many far-flung plants. The plants are flung as far as possible so modern corporation presidents will have an excuse to fly around the country in corporate jets drinking martinis at

  550 miles an hour. The rest of us have to fly via commercial airliner, which is less pleasant because federal law requires commercial airliners to carry infants trained to squall at altitudes above two hundred feet. This keeps the passengers calm, because they’re all thinking, “I wish somebody would stuff a towel into that infant’s mouth,” which prevents them from thinking, “I am thirty-five thousand feet up in the air riding in an extremely sophisticated and complex piece of machinery controlled by a person with a Southern accent.”

  Actually, there’s nothing to worry about, except the possibility that all the engines will fail at once and the plane will drop like a rock. And even if this happens, airplanes have all kinds of backup safety devices, by which I mean little masks that pop out of the ceiling. You’re supposed to put one of these over your mouth so the pilot won’t hear you screaming while he radios for instructions on how to get the engines started again, assuming the radio still works. So you’re actually much safer flying in an airplane than riding in a car, although needless to say this ceases to be true once the airplane hits the ground. But as long as the plane is in the air and the engines are going, the only bad thing that can happen is that it will fly into another plane, which is why we have air traffic controllers.

  In the old days, air traffic controllers sat and stared at little radar screens so long that they eventually went crazy, so Ronald Reagan, who is firmly opposed to having crazy federal employees below the Cabinet level, fired them all and got a new batch. Needless to say the new controllers don’t want to make the same mistake as their predecessors, so they’ve learned how to relax on the job. Their motto is “Tomorrow is another day,” and their approach is low-key:

  PILOT: This is Flight 274, requesting landing instructions.

  CONTROLLER: Well, if it was me, I would put the wheels down first, but don’t quote me on that.

  PILOT: No, I already know how to land I was hoping you could tell me which runway I should land on.

  CONTROLLER: Ah. Let me just turn on the little screen here, and ... There we are. Say, is that you about to plow into the mountain?

  PILOT: No.

  CONTROLLER: Oh. That must be one of Bob’s. (Yelling to another controller.) Bob, could you turn your screen on for a second? One of your planes is about to ... Wait, forget it.

  PILOT: Um, look, we’re running out of fuel here, so I’d really appreciate it if you could possibly ...

  CONTROLLER: Hey, lighten up, will you? Do you want to make me tense and crazy so Reagan can fire me? (Yelling to other controllers.) Hey, guys! I think I got a Republican here! (Laughter in background, shouts of “Steer him into the mountain!”)

  PILOT: Look, please

  CONTROLLER: Hey, no sweat. We’re just having some fun. I’ll get back to you with a runway right after my break.

  PILOT: But

  CONTROLLER: (Click.)

  Here are some tips for making your trip more enjoyable:

  Never believe anything airline employees say about when a plane will land or take off. No matter how badly the schedule is screwed up, they will claim everything is fine, because otherwise you might realize it would be faster to walk to your destination. Let’s say you’re waiting for Flight 206, which is an hour late, and you ask an agent at the ticket counter when it’s due in. He’ll punch a few buttons on his computer, which will give him this message: “FLIGHT 206 HAS CRASH-LANDED ON A REMOTE CORAL REEF IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC AND ALL THE TIRES ARE FLAT AND THE ENGINES ARE BROKEN AND THE PASSENGERS AND CREW ARE BEING HELD AT GUNPOINT BY PALESTINIAN HIJACKERS ARMED WITH NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND THERE IS A VERY HEAVY FOG.” The agent will look you cheerfully in the eye and say: “It should be here any minute now.”

  Never let anybody take your luggage. Airline employees will continually try to snatch it from you; you must ward them off with a stiff forearm and flee on foot. If they corner you, toss your luggage out the window, or set it on fire—anything to prevent it from falling into their hands, because God alone knows what will happen to it then. Never pull out a machine gun and fire thirty thousand rounds into the leech-like cult members who approach you in airports and try to get you to give them money. Some stray bullets could conceivably hit innocent bystanders, and then you would feel terrible.

  The Sporting Life

  Unsportsmanlike Conduct

  I first got involved in organized sports in fifth grade, when, because of federal law, I had to join the Little League. In Little League we played a game that is something like baseball, except in baseball you are supposed to catch, throw and hit a ball, whereas most of us Little Leaguers could do none of these things.

  Oh, there were a few exceptions, fast-developing boys with huge quantities of adolescent hormones raging through their bodies, causing them to have rudimentary mustaches and giving them the ability to throw a ball at upwards of six hundred miles an hour, but with no idea whatsoever where it would go. These boys always got to pitch, which presented a real problem for the rest of us, because in Little League the pitcher stands eight feet from home plate. The catcher got to wear many protective garments, and the umpire got to wear protective garments and hide behind the catcher. But all we batters got to wear was plastic helmets that fell off if we moved our heads.

  I hated to bat. I used to pray that the kids ahead of me would strike out, or that I would get appendicitis, or that a volcano would erupt in center field before my turn came. I was very close to God when

  I was in Little Lea
gue. But sometimes He would let me down, and I’d have to bat. In the background, the coach would yell idiot advice, such as

  “Keep your eye on the ball.” This was easy for him to say: he always stood over by the bench, well out of harm’s way.

  I made no effort to keep my eye on the ball. I concentrated exclusively on avoiding death. I would stand there, trying to hold my head perfectly still so my helmet wouldn’t fall off, and when the prematurely large kid who was pitching let go of the ball, I would swing the bat violently, in hopes of striking out or deflecting the ball before it could smash into my body. Usually I struck out, which was good, because then I could go back to the safety of the bench and help the coach encourage some other terrified kid to keep his eye on the ball. I much preferred to play in the field, especially the outfield. If a batter got a hit, you could run like a maniac, and the odds were that you’d be several hundred feet away from the ball by the time it landed.

  I understand that Little League was supposed to teach me the rules of sportsmanship. The main rule of sportsmanship I learned was: Never participate in a sport where the coach urges you to do insane and dangerous things that he himself does not do. Football is another good example. If you watch a football game, you’ll notice that the coaches constantly urge the players to run into each other at high speeds, but the coaches themselves tend to remain on the sidelines.