Copilot/With Cute Stewardess Drinking Beer

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CP: Well you’re starting early this morning (referring to the open fifth of duty free between my legs), HAHA! Well I won’t tell if you don’t (and out comes his flask of some noxious poison). The problem with this, and not being able to smoke, it makes me drowsy as a mutherfucker, HAHAHA!
ME: I used to have that problem too. I have two words for you, Amphetamines, Cocaine, No Doze & Coffee.
CP: You do seem perkier this morning. How was your vacation?
ME: Oh, that. I ruined it about halfway through, trying to read a book about flying airplanes (glug glug glug).
CP: HAHAHA! You? Ha (coughing), tried to read a book, (hack hack hack), about flying airplanes! On your vacation? What the hell were you thinking? You’re not supposed to do that!
ME: Well I know that now Thank You. Jesus Christ we’re in the air, I’m going out to drink beer with whatsherface.
ME & CP: (simultaneously) Ok, come wake me up when it’s time to land.
CP: Jinx! HAHA!
ME: Oh shit, haha, uhm - how old are you, 19, 20?

With Cute Stewardess Drinking Beer

ME: So where were we?
CS: I think we were talking about your family.
ME: Oh fuck that - they are all incompetent drunken idiots, all working in complicated and dangerous fields they have no hope of ever comprehending. It bothers me that 99% of all people seem so clueless, can’t begin to understand 99% of the technologies they rely on to live, or how dangerous and poisonous those appliances are, and how is the average fool ever going to fix their life or this world when they can’t even fix a toaster, they can probably electrocute themselves a dozen times trying, but actually getting the thing to work without setting themselves on fire, never. Take this freaking airplane for example, did you know that we are many miles above the earth, and that it is harsh and cold up here?
CS: Yeah, me and whatsherface noticed this huge chunk of ice on the wing, every time we fly it grows on the wing in the same spot, the wing looks kind of cracked, maybe that’s why. Anyway, me or her or somebody mentioned it to somebody months ago I think, that isn’t normal is it?

It occurred to me shortly after this conversation that the passengers were my only hope, and while it occurs to me this should’ve been obvious from the start I’m not surprised that it wasn’t.

Anyway, my thinking goes like this: to your average stewardess this is just a mundane job, nothing too frightening or complicated, but the passengers, it’s their lives at stake, their money to be here, wouldn’t they demand some sort of competence from me just like everybody demands everything when it’s their life & money at stake? The passengers would stop me, they would demand that I be terminated, that some dependable robot or computer take over.

My plan couldn’t seem simpler, just turn on the PA and start talking, “If you look out over the left or right wing you’ll notice a huge chunk of ice the size of a Volkswagen, apparently it’s been there forever but I never had the presence of mind to notice, I think one of these dials or leevers is supposed to alert me to these sorts of things but I don’t understand stuff like that and I’m convinced that half of this crap is broken or malfunctioning anyway.”

That last thought held me for a second. Shit! It was because I’d forgotten to turn on the PA. Doubleshit! I had no idea how to turn on the PA, every time I touched the thing I got a mild electrical shock so I stopped touching it for the most part. Holy shit I’m not even in the cockpit, I’m in the john drinking some vile contaminant out of a huge bottle and muttering at the ceiling. I really should choose between this and flying airplanes, I shouldn’t ever try to do both, but as I’m already doing this blah blah blah -

I regained consciousness in some gigantic airport, soldiers and cops everywhere, somehow I’d pulled it off again, I was walking around, blabbing to other people dressed as pilots, buying stuff, just like a normal person. The horror overtook me at bar number two or three, when I tried to light a cigarette, no smoking allowed anywhere ever, and all those soldiers and cops everywhere, can’t I get through 15 minutes in some state of relative peace? I had to think, there had to be someplace to smoke somewhere, others like me would completely flip out if there wasn’t. The first step was to figure out which airport I was in, so I asked the bartender and he said something incomprehensible to me, he must’ve noticed because he continued, more slowly and loudly, “You are in Denver, International”, and with those utterances my horror was transformed into sheer panic. Denver X is one of the biggest most confusing airports ever, and most of them are huge and confusing. There was one designated smoking area somewhere in the thing, a filthy 10 ft Plexiglas cube in the middle of some random cavernous walkway somewhere, my chances of finding it were slim at best, I was ready to kill myself when I heard the sound of cheap dress shoes running and my mind leapt to the sound of those shoes, I looked out to the walkway and saw another Captain just like me, running for his life, and in a flash I was after him, when it comes to smoking cigarettes my mind is filled with lightning, somehow that warrants whatever decent circuitry is left.

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