by Kirsten Koza
Reda Wigle is a middle child named after a stigmatic saint. She likes bourbon and hates pants. Her favorite place is the one she hasn’t seen yet.
ELIZABETH TASKER
The Chocolate
Egg Bomber
The scientist and the terrorist.
“WE RECOMMEND ALL FLIGHT PASSENGERS USE THE RESTROOM BEFORE boarding.”
The last time someone had suggested this to me, I was out of nappies sufficiently recently not to be trusted on car journeys lasting more than 15 minutes. The consequences of avoiding such preparatory activities back then had led to the day my parents lovingly refer to as Brown Thursday, an event in which all defecating cattle in the local British countryside were upstaged by a toddler.
Now an astrophysicist in my mid-30s, it was rare that people questioned my continence. Japan Airlines clearly felt this was a grave omission. I thought this through. Then I went to the bathroom. Because there are some risks nobody should take.
It later transpired that the airline’s true concern was the expected turbulence during the first part of the flight between Tokyo and Vietnam. Such air bumps meant that passengers would have to stay seated past the point when they would normally have relieved themselves, due to having chugged the giant bottle of Coke they couldn’t bring through security. Thinking of which, I stopped by one of the terminal shops to pick up a drink for my own journey. Stacked invitingly in the refrigerator was a line of cola bottles, each and every one with “Good Luck” stamped on its label. I began to wonder if the universe was telling me something—such that I was about to sit beside a passenger whose hand luggage consisted of 36 Kinder Surprise chocolate eggs.
Had the gentleman in question been flying to the USA, he would never have made it past Customs and Border Protection. Comprised of a hollow milk chocolate shell with a toy in the center, these candy delights are known to kill American children on sight. So great is their lethal potency that attempting to bring these dangerous goods into the country will result in fines rumored to be between $300 and $2,500 per egg. This is even if you pack them snuggly between your entirely legal flamethrower, electric minigun, grenade launcher, and umbrella sword.
The eggs were stacked in their three-tier tray under my neighbor’s seat. As I stepped carefully past him to take my own seat, I smiled and remarked jovially, “That is perhaps the most surprising hand luggage I’ve ever seen anyone bring!” I nodded toward the eggs.
The man said nothing.
Slowly, his head turned to stare silently back at me. Then his gaze returned without further acknowledgment to the back of the seat.
It was then I began to suspect he was going to kill us all. Remember the shoe bomber? That man packed his footwear with explosives and was only prevented destroying the plane by alert passengers and flight attendants. Now his memory was about to be entirely eclipsed by the guy who wired up his own detonation device from three dozen separate plastic parts embedded in milk chocolate goodness.
Of course, I was overreacting. The individual I had now silently labeled a threat to mankind may simply not have spoken English. He was a non-Asian on a flight between Japan and Vietnam who had just ordered his onboard drinks in English but it was perfectly possible that…no, it wasn’t. He was clearly a terrorist.
The more I considered it (and I had a while on that delayed six-hour flight), the weirder it looked. After all, who brings large quantities of Italian chocolate from Japan to Vietnam? Given its intended recipients, why would you ever buy so much? The man was either a hardened criminal or the father of six sets of deprived American sextuplets who had been smuggled into Asia so they could finally experience the combined delight of a gift that was both a tooth-rotting snack and a toy with dangerously small parts. Both explanations would admittedly explain why he was at a loss for words.
I tried to watch a movie, but my eyes kept sliding toward the eggs. Innocent treats to melt in your mouth, or packed explosives to melt your plane? It was ridiculous, yet it smelled of genius. The eggs were supposed to have something inside them, so would it be detectable on the bag scanner if the contents were a toy or parts of an explosive device? If each egg were harmless separately, who would know the danger until they were connected together?
My neighbor’s hand moved as he leaned forward. Mine twitched toward the flight attendant “help” button. But rather than reaching for the eggs, the man extracted the safety card from the seat pocket. Frankly, that was the most suspicious action yet: honestly, who reads that thing? Perhaps only someone who knew the plane was going down.
Part of me wanted to take a nap. The other part wanted to stay awake in case I had to save the world. It was a dilemma. The problem with dangerous ideas that are this absurd is that you know no one else is going to come up with them. This meant the guy had a clear run if I dozed off.
I decided to stay awake and vigilant. However, rather than announcing to the whole plane that we were all about to be murdered by chocolate eggs, I’d stay silent unless I saw:
The eggs suddenly connected together with wires.
The eggs being taken to the toilet.
Because seriously, the last one is abnormal and unhygienic.
The upshot was I kept half an eye on the eggs for most of the flight. My neighbor didn’t use the bathroom; he had either followed the airline instructions before boarding the flight, or he had seen me staring at his candy and thought he would be down six eggs before he got back.
When we touched down safely in Hanoi, I concluded that it was my vigilance that had saved the day. I gave my flight companion a curt nod as I left; he knows what he did.
Elizabeth Tasker is an astrophysicist working in Japan. Originally from the UK, Elizabeth graduated from Durham University in theoretical physics before being inspired by Men in Black and deciding to build parallel universes inside her computer. She therefore dropped south to Oxford and completed a doctorate in computational astrophysics. After that she moved, wandering minstrel style, to the USA and then to Canada on research positions, before taking up her current position in Japan. She now spends her days building galaxies in her computer and wondering when she will learn enough Japanese that the canteen will become less confusing than her research. Her popular science writing has appeared on sites that include Scientific American, The Conversation, I Fucking Love Science, and Physics Focus, and has received a collection of awards, including second prize in the 2014 Chemistry World science communication competition and first prize in the 2013 Global Voices from Japan column contest.
GAZELLE PAULO
Friendly Skies
Coffee, tea, or Gaga?
NOTE FROM THE EDITOR: YOU’VE PROBABLY HEARD ABOUT GERARD Depardieu urinating in the aisle of a plane. After reading about Depardieu’s claims of drinking a case of wine a day, plus a half-bottle of pastis, some champagne, vodka, whiskey, and then the other half-bottle of pastis, I’m not surprised that he had a full bladder. You’ve probably seen outrageous behavior on planes, but can you imagine what a flight attendant sees over the course of a career? I wasn’t sure I could envision the extent of it, so I asked Gazelle Paulo, a New York fashion writer, who is also a flight attendant, to reveal some of the weirdest things he’s experienced on a plane.
I HAVE BEEN WORKING AS A FLIGHT ATTENDANT FOR OVER SEVENTEEN years at a major U.S. airline, and I love it. But dealing with the public is not an easy task, and if you are 33,000 feet above the ground, the solution to a problem is not always within arm’s reach.
Stars in the Sky—Celebrities!
Flight crews have incredible access to celebrities in the premium cabins. I have had the pleasure of seeing and meeting so many world icons that I’m just not bothered anymore, until they’re a bother, that is. I do admit I was star-struck when Faye Dunaway was on my flight from Paris to New York. She was the last person to board the plane, arriving about ten minutes after the scheduled departure time. She didn’t have a personal entourage, but the airport service attendants were helpin
g to carry her six Louis Vuitton duffel bags, which I had to find space for on a full flight. I’m not complaining. I love my job.
But when it comes to entourage, or assistants, Madonna is a mile high above the rest. On a flight from New York to Sao Paulo, Madonna was the last to board the flight. She was escorted right up to the airplane door by someone pushing a trolley cart with her carry-on. She was the vision of a material girl. But this was the special part: she sat in first class with an assistant who was in charge of preparing her special meal in the galley. Madonna’s special meal came with an assistant.
EDITOR: Now that’s special. What did Madonna’s special-meal assistant prepare?
GAZELLE: It was a mix of vegetables that needed to be left in the oven for a specific time.
EDITOR: Was Madonna wearing pants? I still haven’t recovered from seeing her bare butt getup at the Grammy Awards.
GAZELLE: She was wearing sweat pants; very simple. The grandeur of the moment came with all the entourage surrounding her.
I wish I could leak the name of The Usual Suspects actor who (on a flight from London to New York) told the purser not to speak to him during the rest of the flight. The American actor shouted “Leave me alone!” so rudely that the word “rude” is too civil to use as a description.
EDITOR: Gazelle, I’m sorry to interrupt, but this isn’t fair. We need to know who. Maybe you can give us a hint. According to IMDb, Kevin Spacey auditioned for The Gong Show twice in the seventies and was rejected both times. So, just ring the gong once if it was Kevin Spacey who yelled at the purser.
GAZELLE: Well, unfortunately I can’t. Just thinking about it gives me chills and I am afraid nightmares could affect the peace of my Brazilian/American Beauty state of mind....
EDITOR: Please tell me it wasn’t Benicio del Toro. He’s so nice in my fantasies.
GAZELLE With those eyes, I don’t think Benicio could ever be rude to anybody.
Lady Gaga is on the Jet Bridge
The queen of the little monsters takes her fashion image so seriously that she risks breaking her ankles and holding up flights in the name of style. I’d finished welcoming all the passengers aboard a flight from London to New York when I saw Lady Gaga (being escorted by airport security and followed by her entourage) coming my way down the jet bridge. She was walking on skyscraper-tall platform shoes with no heels. As she entered the inclined jet bridge she decided to walk sideways to avoid falling, touching the walls with her two hands, while her entourage and airline staff followed her tottering progress. It took her about 15 minutes to inch her way down a ramp which is a normal 30-second jaunt.
EDITOR: So next time our readers are sitting aboard their flights, delayed at the gate, wondering if they’re going to make their connections, it could be because a celebrity is holding up departure due to wearing stupid shoes?
GAZELLE Well, I wanted to shout, “take off the shoes for God’s sake!” since there were no paparazzi or Fashion Police members around to document that silly scene.
EDITOR: Do pilots ever say, “Screw you Lady Gaga. This plane is outta here.”?
GAZELLE They had no idea what was going on; only me, gate agents and Gaga’s entourage witnessed that. Come to think of it, she could write the song “My Shoes Are Too Sexy for This Jet Bridge.”
EDITOR: Was the rude actor from The Usual Suspects Kevin Spacey?
GAZELLE Don’t interrupt me, honey, when I am talking about Gaga’s shoes.
I Am too Big for this Door
On a 757 from New York to San Juan, a large man entered the aft lavatory, and the door closed snuggly behind him. But due to his size he couldn’t turn around to open the door, nor could he reach behind himself to slide it open. He was stuck. Then he panicked. He started screaming at the top of his lungs. We couldn’t open the door for him because he was wedged against it, sealing it shut. We finally got the tools and removed the entire door. The screeching man backed out and returned to his seat.
EDITOR: I was just thinking that Alec Baldwin was hauled off an American Airlines flight a few years ago for having a tantrum after being asked to turn off his phone. His brother Stephen was in The Usual Suspects. Was Stephen Baldwin the actor who yelled at the purser?
GAZELLE Alec Baldwin could yell at the purser, at the whole cabin crew, at me, even at Lady Gaga...he is so cute.
I Am Too Big for this Toilet Seat
Our plane was circling the skies around JFK Airport. We couldn’t land because one of our passengers was seated, but not in her seat. She was on the toilet seat, panties down, and she couldn’t get up. Three acrobatic flight attendants couldn’t budge the bulging woman from the bitty bathroom. The plane kept circling. There wasn’t space for the cabin crew to squish behind her to get leverage. The plane kept circling. The woman’s legs tired from her valiant effort. We coaxed and coached her. Then finally with a final burst of willpower, she pushed, and grunted and strained, and we freed her.
EDITOR: Gazelle, even Disney realized they had to do something about the It’s a Small World ride when the ever-fattening theme park attendees were bottoming out the boats. People were lighter in the ’60s when the ride was designed. But it seems the airlines aren’t getting this and everything on board is shrinking while the population’s girth is expanding. Please don’t tell me that the seats aren’t getting smaller, because that means I’m getting bigger.
GAZELLE Sorry to inform, but you are getting bigger.
EDITOR: Kevin Pollak was in The Usual Suspects but I just can’t picture him yelling at the purser, and Gabriel Byrne is from Dublin, and Pete Postlethwaite was born in Cheshire. Was it Chazz Palminteri or Kevin Pollak who was rude?
GAZELLE Do you ever give up on something?
What’s Love Got to Do with It?
The airplane front door was closed, and we were still parked at the gate while the last of the cargo was loaded. So we decided to take the dinner preferences on this London-to-New York flight. When I reached the last row, a “gentleman” punched a woman’s face, and then she returned a punch to his face. Oh Lord have mercy on me! After a nanosecond of shock, I told them both to hold onto those thoughts, and I ran to first class to get the purser. By the time we came back, the couple looked like the Ike and Tina Turner characters in their biographic movie What’s Love Got to Do With It. The door was reopened and we left without them.
No First-Time Ambien on a Plane
A gentleman, seated in business class on a flight to Rio de Janeiro, decided to take a “few Ambiens” after dinner service and lights were out so he could fall asleep. A few hours later, in the dark, he was completely naked walking in between cabins. The crew spotted his white ass and took him to his seat, but he was naked and didn’t remember where he’d left his clothes. He stayed naked in his seat, under a blanket, until we landed in Rio. After all passengers deplaned we were able to find his ensemble, which was neatly placed in an overhead bin in the main cabin.
Just No Ambien, Please!
On another flight to Rio, also in business class, a naked lady (naked except for her pink socks with daisy prints) decided to go to the first row of the cabin in the middle of the night, turned her back to the division partition, and right there she took a dump. We, the cabin crew, believed that she thought she was in her bathroom because she tried to reach for invisible toilet paper and touched a sleeping passenger’s leg. The poor guy woke to find that the floor and his shoes were covered in shit. We wrapped the woman in a clean blanket while we carefully tried to wake her up—many times—and after we succeeded and explained the situation to her, she was so distressed and embarrassed that she asked to be moved to a seat in the back of the main cabin, where she stayed until the end of the flight. The gentleman whose shoes she defecated upon deplaned only wearing his socks.
Phlegm au Poivre
In the middle of the first-class dinner service enroute to Buenos Aires, a gentleman fell asleep right after I put his plate of steak au poivre on his tray table. His
head was tilted forward, and as he was snoring a cascade of mucus was pouring out of his nose, over his shirt, and onto his plate. It was a dilemma. I knew I had to let him know. I wasn’t sure how to delicately handle this snot issue. So I decided to go back to the galley to get some hot towels to give him upon waking. It took a while for the galley flight attendant to find some extra towels since we had used most of them right before the beginning of the service. When I returned to the passenger with the moist hot towels, he was awake and attacking his phlegm-sauce steak. His shirt was still slick with snot. Should I have said something?
EDITOR: Gazelle, was Kevin Spacey the actor who shouted “Leave me alone!”?
GAZELLE Oh my God, would YOU just please leave me alone!
Gazelle Paulo, 45, is a Brazilian-born international flight attendant based out of JFK Airport. Gazelle has been flying for over seventeen years—mostly between U.S. and South America/Europe—for one of the biggest American commercial carriers in the world, but nonetheless he has traveled all over the world. His favorite routes are from New York to Rome, Rio de Janeiro, and Brussels. Besides flying, Gazelle is a fashion observer for TheBlot Magazine. @gazellepaulo
SHANNON BRADFORD
The Córdoban Crap
“Ooh, but I still smell her.”
—Lt. Col. Frank Slade, Scent of a Woman
I USE POSITIVE AND WELL-TIMED BATHROOM VISITS AS PERHAPS THE number one barometer of trip success. I’ve had plenty of diarrhea-fraught explorations through Central America, a few close calls in Europe, and a good number of bidet bloopers in the Middle East. But on this particular trip (two months backpacking through Argentina, Bolivia, and Peru), I had been nailing the pee-and-poo visits like an old pro. You wouldn’t catch me in a bathroom without my purse toilet paper, nor squeezing my thighs on a street corner. I was an efficient urinating-and-pooping machine.