Drinking On A Jet Plane

The great thing about having neighbors that you know really well is you can steal things from them all the time. For instance, I routinely steal the “New York Times” off the Mosher’s and Ariana’s doormat. In my defense, they are technically stealing it too. They didn’t subscribe to it; yet it randomly appears on the doorstep every day. Besides, they are women so they can’t read anyway; they just put it in their angry parrot’s cage (I’m assuming here that somehow the parrot does know how to read). I of course, do read the “Times” in order to enlighten myself to the goings on of the world around me. Or not. Actually, I just steal the papers for the crosswords.

Anyway, I was searching through one of the papers looking for the crosswords when I came upon an interesting and disturbing story. Apparently, a United Airlines pilot was recently arrested for trying to fly a plane drunk. Luckily, his copilot caught him before he was able to take off with 124 people on board. Of course, the signs were probably pretty obvious. For one thing, he kept singing Elton John’s “Take Me to the Pilot” to the control tower and kept asking why the man outside with the traffic cones was doing the Macarena.

Now, I’m not going to defend this guy. After all, I regularly fly on United, and they don’t let me get drunk on planes and if there is anything I don’t stand for, it is double standards. But let’s consider some of the facts. He was taking off from London (where there is nothing to do but drink because the weather outside sucks) and was going to land in Chicago’s O’Hare Airport (which was designed by people clearly also under the influence of alcohol). Besides, what is he going to hit up there? It’s not like driving a car drunk, when evil trees and road signs can leap out at you and hit your car. Speaking of being in the air, do you think that the pilot was drinking Skyy Vodka? (If you were even slightly amused by that pun, you need to find the highest point near you and jump off of it now head first.)

According to the article, many people are now starting to really become concerned with what pilots are really doing during flights. I am not one of these people. I have way more important things to be worried about than what two men locked for hours alone in a small room called a “cock pit” are doing. For instance, my roommate and I are fairly confident that there is a pumpkin rotting somewhere in our house, but neither of us can remember for the life of us where we put it. Anyway, apparently last month, two pilots overshot Minneapolis by an hour because they were doing things on their laptop. I bet they were Twittering too.

Bob: “Kicking back in the cockpit. Almost to St. Louis.” (an hour ago)

Bob: “Wait, the flight is to Minneapolis?” (almost a minute ago)

Bob: “Oh s**t.” (five seconds ago)

Of course, there probably is an alternative explanation. For one, I’m pretty sure they just didn’t want to go to Minnesota. I bet when they announced that they overshot Minnesota over the loud speaker, the entire plane cheered. I mean, I have been on flights that have lasted for eight hours. That’s a lot of time to just sit in a chair and stare at the sky. And they don’t even get to watch the stupid in-flight movie (today’s movie: “Gigli”). I heard that these planes fly themselves anyway; the pilots could probably drink and sober up in time to greet the passengers leaving to take credit for staring at a computer doing all of the actual work.

But that is still no excuse for these pilots to drink. Thousands of people pay good money and get sexually harassed by airport security to put their lives in the hands of these people. When I fly, I don’t expect my final destination to be the scene of the crash. There are plenty of other jobs where drinking on the job is acceptable, like surgeons or prime minister of Russia.

Believe it or not, at one point I wanted to be a pilot. Of course by “I” I mean “my parents.” I frankly don’t like flying much. But my parents figured if I was a pilot that they could fly around the world for free. Or at least to Vegas. It’s not like they don’t go there now anyways; since I’ve been up here they’ve visited me once and gone to Las Vegas five times. But the less money they lose on plane tickets the more money they can lose at the crap tables. In fact, that is also the reason my parents wanted me to go to the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, work as a dealer, or become a Vegas prostitute.

Anyways, back to my main point, which was… well I don’t really have a main point. I rarely do. But as far as planes, knowing my pilots are drunk is not going to stop me from flying. Mainly because I live on an island. If there was a boat I would take the boat. At least on the boat back home I could bask on the deck and stare at women in bikinis. Whereas normally wearing bikinis on a plane is frowned upon. Or at least it is when I do it; they might not be as opposed to it if I were a hot woman. Which is once again evidence of the sexist attitudes that make this country great. Speaking of which, I’m going to go steal wireless internet from the neighbors.