Airplane Observations

This guy's haircut evokes a caricature of Elvis. A little flip in the front, a sideburn for each side and perfectly jet black. The red fleece pullover and burgeoning bald spot slowly dissipate the comparison...

This other guy wears a hunting shirt. Who the hell wears a hunting shirt? Not a hunting vest or a camouflage, multi-pocketed jobby, but a shirt that at first glance seems camouflage, but is actually just depicting some kick-ass bow hunting scenes. So as to not hide himself completely in the wooded environment of an airplane cabin, he dons a Sesame Street-green ballcap. He does keep a neatly-trimmed beard, so he's got that going for him. As he flips through the SkyMall magazine, I wonder if he secretly wishes that he'll stumble across the one rifle scope he's been dreaming about his entire life. I'm secretly hoping that he doesn't happen to look back at what I'm writing and start pummeling me, air rage consequences be damned. While I wouldn't mind being mildly famous, I don't desire the infamy of landing on the national news becaue my plane had to touch down in Des Moines to allow the flight attendants to scrape my bloody carcass from my seat in Coach.

Now we're taxiing toward the runway. If you think about it, it's a little confusing. I normally equate the word "taxi" with a taxi cab. Yet I don't see too many folks standing along the tarmac, arms outstretched, lips pursed and whistling, attempting to hail an airplane. I also like how we call them "airplanes". Are there planes that don't fly through the air? Maybe we should start calling boats "waterplanes" and cars "roadplanes".

This is starting to sound like an Andy Rooney piece. I guess I shouldn't complain; I'd love to get paid to come up with one semi-coherent rant per week and still be revered as a clever old curmudgeon.

I look out the window and realize that I'm staring at an engine. I've always been fascinated with the occasional occurrence of an engine falling off a plane and landing in someone's yard or on someone's roof. I think it would be fun to witness something like this first-hand. Maybe not smashing through my roof and certainly not injuring or killing anyone. Which makes the recent story of a mid-air collision of two planes both disturbing and morbidly interesting. Apparently (obviously), body parts were dropping from the sky.

I have nothing else to add here.