Death in 14F

I'm annoyed to wake to the sound of an elderly woman screaming. Our plane just took a sharp dive, losing about 100 feet of altitude in the time it takes to say “my cat has no teeth.” This caused granny poopypants in seat 12A to emit a sustained, high-pitched squeal – a sound similar to what I heard one time when I hit a baby pig with my Jeep Wrangler on an Alabaman back road in 1982.

The plane had suspicious credentials to begin with. As it pulled onto the tarmac in San Juan, there was an abrupt stop, followed by the aircraft slowly inching its way back towards the gate. The pilot came over the intercom and stated that the 737’s weight balance was still off, and a few bags had to be shifted from one side to the other. A few bags? On a plane with a max gross takeoff weight of over 174,000 pounds? Yeah, sure. Maybe one of those bags contained a few spoonfuls of neutron star in a little ziplock baggie. So I grabbed one of the minuscule bottles of Bacardi that were being handed out by the stewardess and began to drink.

Now I wake with a parched mouth at 37,000 feet, my rum-induced headache not at all alleviated by the old lady’s screaming. And that was just the first drop. The second drop is like this: a brief jarring motion, a sharp clattering sound from somewhere outside the cabin, and then a prolonged, yawning freefall with passengers yelling madly and clawing at the air. The plane is like a piano suspended at the end of a thin rope – the first few strands break, the piano falls several feet and stops, and then, a few seconds later, the rest of the rope snaps and the whole thing comes crashing down onto the street with a bang.

As the plane plummets turbulently towards the Atlantic, I look around, mildly irritated by everyone's undignified reactions. I note that some of the passengers have become drenched by their beverages flying off the tray tables – a motley collection of club sodas, coffees and ginger ales, each in their little plastic cups, had, with the first freefall, crashed upward into the ceiling with a festive spray. I look behind me and notice cranberry juice now dripping from the overhead compartment a few rows back.

Well, needless to say, I'm a little put off by all of the chaos and bloody screaming, and I'm beginning to mentally compose the first few sentences of my complaint e-mail to United, when I hear the pilot's trembling voice, now barely registering over the clamor: “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re all going to die…”

I tune out the pilot and begin to do what my life coach – currently relaxing somewhere near Santa Barbara – suggests in times like these: positive visualization. You visualize a better situation, and the better situation manifests itself. As he says, the universe will provide. So I try to think about the plane stabilizing, climbing, floating back up into the clouds – and, for good measure, diverting its route from O’hare to Fiji. When the positive visualization thing doesn't work, I open my eyes, gaze to my left, and see a mother weeping with terror next to her bawling children. I think to myself, “Oh heck. Those kids are gonna kick the bucket just like the rest of us. That’s a shame.”

As if on cue, the little yellow oxygen masks drop straight out of the ceiling, which seems to crank our operatic airborne drama to an even higher pitch. The masks are just like they look in the demonstrations – flimsy cups that were obviously manufactured in some backwater Chinese sweatshop, each with an elastic strap and a long plastic tube attached to flimsy little bag. I look closer at the non-inflating oxygen bag dangling in front of me, and I see some instructions written on it in various languages, including Ebonics.

They read: “What’s crackin’, nig? Yo, hit this chronic air fo’ a while and you be feelin’ dope.” I'm disappointed in the writing. I hoped the Ebonics would be a little more authentic. They were obviously written by a white guy.

And as I fixate on this, my neck is splattered with warm barf from one of the spluttering kids to my left. That’s when I decide to make my last phone call.

Looking out the window, the ocean still seems a good distance away. But I know, as our plane winds inexorably downward at a gut-sickening velocity, that we'll be making our “water landing” quite soon, and the plane will be pulverized against the concrete waves – so I grab the plastic phone nestled in the seatback, swipe my MasterCard, and quickly tap the eleven-digit number.

A few rings later, a fuzzy voice on the other end of the line: “Hi, this is John Draper.” It's my broker.

“John, look. I’ve run into a little snag here. Go ahead and liquidate my shares in G. Snack enterprises.”

“Yeah, OK,” he responds. “I’ll take care of it. The shareholders are gonna be pissed, you know.”

“I know, but that’s just how it goes. Also, I want to make a change to my will.”

“OK, let me get a pen.” A few seconds later, his voice again: “OK, go ahead.”

“Change every instance of ‘my loving wife’ to ‘the Scottish architect.’ Also, I want to have fifteen hundred pipe bombs shipped to United Corporate Headquarters, 77 West Wacker drive, Chicago…”