Paradigm shit
We have all been there.
On a plane the usual rules of engagement are relaxed. One could easily be talking to a stranger and letting loose at the same time and it's all good. It's almost expected.
It's possible that the flight crew are in on this as well. That smile that they are trained to greet one with is exactly what you would expect from somebody who gets a good one out.
Sometimes however you get stuck behind a passenger with a particularly bad arse.
Then, when you are exposed to cabbage and God knows what else, it's not such a fun way to pass the time. This often happens in smaller planes, like the turboprop ones I use regularly to Mozambique.
The safety instruction card is, by the way, the best defense against the dark arts.
You wave it like a wand and wrinkle your nose and in a while, it all dissipates, until you see the guy front leaning the other way, and you are in the cabbage patch all over again.
Last year I was on a flight to West Africa and had the misfortune to be stuck behind a particularly nasty piece of work. And this time around I wasn't the only one who seemed to notice. It got progressively worse in frequency and sheer density until I had to fight the urge to go all "Road rage" on the guy.
At one point I was sure he had actually crapped himself.
A few weeks later I was retelling this adventure when a doctor in the family said something that changed my entire outlook. "He could have been wearing a bag".
It had never occurred to me that the guy had a badly fitted gastric bag and that he was a survivor of some horrible accident or medical procedure gone wrong.
And once it was pointed out to me, I was embarrassed that I wasn't more understanding.
If I could only get a do over I would certainly try to be more humane.
So like I said in the beginning, paradigm shit.
On a plane the usual rules of engagement are relaxed. One could easily be talking to a stranger and letting loose at the same time and it's all good. It's almost expected.
It's possible that the flight crew are in on this as well. That smile that they are trained to greet one with is exactly what you would expect from somebody who gets a good one out.
Sometimes however you get stuck behind a passenger with a particularly bad arse.
Then, when you are exposed to cabbage and God knows what else, it's not such a fun way to pass the time. This often happens in smaller planes, like the turboprop ones I use regularly to Mozambique.
The safety instruction card is, by the way, the best defense against the dark arts.
You wave it like a wand and wrinkle your nose and in a while, it all dissipates, until you see the guy front leaning the other way, and you are in the cabbage patch all over again.
Last year I was on a flight to West Africa and had the misfortune to be stuck behind a particularly nasty piece of work. And this time around I wasn't the only one who seemed to notice. It got progressively worse in frequency and sheer density until I had to fight the urge to go all "Road rage" on the guy.
At one point I was sure he had actually crapped himself.
A few weeks later I was retelling this adventure when a doctor in the family said something that changed my entire outlook. "He could have been wearing a bag".
It had never occurred to me that the guy had a badly fitted gastric bag and that he was a survivor of some horrible accident or medical procedure gone wrong.
And once it was pointed out to me, I was embarrassed that I wasn't more understanding.
If I could only get a do over I would certainly try to be more humane.
So like I said in the beginning, paradigm shit.
By the way, this article was uploaded and posted at 50,000 feet on an Emirates flight.
M Parak 2015
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