"No!" Sylvia said in her monotone voice. "You may not have a
martini."
"Oh, why not?" an already drunk passenger responded, slurring his
words together.
"Because we don't have martinis," she said, moodily. She huffed
once.
"Oh please," the pleading passenger insisted. "I don't even wanna
drink it, I jus wanna look at it."
"Look, it is physically impossible for me to fetch you a martini if
there is not one. The only way I could make you a martini is if I made
a distillery out of extraneous pipes and circuits from the airplane's
hydraulics and distilled the vegetable that is lying beneath your
scalp."
"Thank you," said the passenger, now appearing pleased. He was
unintentionally swaying. "I'll take mine extra dry with anolive."
Sylvia rolled her eyes and muttered a quick silent prayer hoping
that either he or she would soon disintegrate out of existence. Just
then, a baby started screaming. Its frantic mother tried to quiet it by
stuffing a pacifier down its throat, but the child kept evading it.
Sylvia then spotted a dark-haired, tall, athletic, and utterly
handsome man sitting down in the front of the cabin (such is her ideal
dream man, you know). In fact, Sylvia fathomed, he seemed ripe for a
discussion about evolution (surely a man of this caliber would not be a
creationist). Sylvia straightened up the seat of her pants and made
sure her blouse was situated correctly on her shoulders. She even did
something that she hadn't done in awhile: smiled. She's one of those
types of women who can make the room illuminate with her smile. She
just usually doesn't want the room to illuminate. Sylvia really does
have a nice smile her teeth are pure white. They provide a good
contrast with her mascara. It was time; she was ready. She walked up to
the guy.
"Hi," Sylvia said. "Did you know that the evolutionary ancestor of
the ordinary horse used to have three toes?"
Meanwhile, the drunk was getting restless.
"I wish I had a martini," he said loudly to himself. He ran his palm
down his face, squishing his cheeks along the way. Then he raised his
hand. "Waitress!"
"For some reason, the Australian duckbilled platypus is the only
mammal to lay eggs and to extract venom," Sylvia was saying to the
dark, handsome man, who had no idea why this strange woman was telling
him these things. What's with her eyes? He was contemplating the
possibility that he entered the Twilight Zone.
"Waitress!" the drunk called, more loudly. He raised his hand in the
air. It wobbled.
"Apparently, the platypus developed venom to keep the Caine Toad
from stealing its eggs," Sylvia said. "However, some scientists
disagree and believe that the platypus--"
"WAITRESS!!!" the drunk interrupted, screaming so intensely that his
face turned red and hundreds of saliva droplets jetted out of his
mouth. "I WANNA MARTINI!"
Sylvia stopped talking and shut her eyes in frustration. She started
to wheeze. The handsome man was darting his eyes. Perhaps he's finally
gone schizophrenic like his dear old mother and her sister, Francis.
For whatever reason, most of his relatives end up going schizophrenic.
He remembered as a child that his Aunt Fran would always talk about how
a giant moth was after her, and she wouldn't let out horrific screams
if anyone in the house merely thought about going outside after dusk.
(He might be every woman's dream-man, but he was messed up ever since
childhood.) He had no idea it started so young, but this funny-looking
stewardess did appear to be some crazy type of hallucination. He
studied her. She didn't look so bad ? except she was as boring as hell
and she wore too much mascara. He's really going to have to tell his
hallucination a thing or two about the fashions if she expected to stay
in his imagination, he thought.
George George was sitting toward the back of the cabin. He was
trying to figure out his seat's reclining system. It suddenly flipped
back and onto a grumpy 63-year-old woman's lap.
"Do you mind?" the woman's stern voice hissed. She was wearing an
oddly out-of-fashion baby-blue hat with a purple feather sticking out
of it. George George clumsily repositioned his seat.
The pilot's voice came on over the intercom. Sylvia quit heaving and
began to make her way to the front of the cabin. The pilot's voice was
breaking up over the ill-maintained speakers. The speaker-quality
didn't matter much anyway, because he wasn't speaking a normal form of
English.
"Uhhhh hello, you are about to uhhh enjoy a flight to uuuuh Tahiti
with [static] VaLey airlines flight number uuuuuh 248. [static] If you
would uuuuh direct your attention to your front?" George George looked
under his shirt wondering what he was supposed to notice. "?uuuhhhh
your friendly flight attendant will now show you the uuuhhhhh proper
way to use the emergency gear in case of an uuuuhhhh emergency.
[static]"
Sylvia held up the demonstrative emergency vest and faked a sunny
disposition. She smiled with her mouth closed and her eyes seemed
bright and excited. She remained there for the pilot to continue with
the emergency instructions, but after a minute passed and nothing
happened, her bright aura suddenly disintegrated. She rolled her eyes,
flopped her arms down to her side, and frowned.
"Sorry about that, folks. And now, your friendly flight attendant
will demonstrate the proper way to use your emergency vest." Sylvia
repositioned the vest and her sunny smile. "If the plane veers out of
control and it is plummeting toward the Pacific Ocean, then put the
vest over your neck and uhhhhhhh [static] pull the string with the red
whistle on it."
Those guys are drinking again. She knows it.
"[static] And now, your uhhhhhh friendly flight attendant will
demonstrate the proper way to use your oxygen masks. [static]" Sylvia
grabbed the prop oxygen mask from an overhead compartment. She held it
up for the passengers and pointed the breathing cup toward them.
"[static] In case of an uhhh emergency, your oxygen masks should drop
from the compartment above. [static]. Once you have uhhhhh secured an
oxygen mask, press the cup over your mouth and nose and uhhhhhhh put
the elastic band over your head." Sylvia pressed the oxygen mask cup to
her left ear. "[static] And then, uhhhhh take long deep breaths."
Sylvia sucked in her cheeks and staggered about as if she were
suffocating. "[static] Yeah, uhhhhhh, thanks for listening, and let's
all have a pleasant uuuuhhhhhh flight. [static]"
After about a minute, the plane began to move. The engine seemed to
vibrate the cabin more than it ought to have. Sylvia began to make her
way to the back of the cabin, but before she did, she eyed that dark
and handsome man. He was staring at her intensely. He was wondering why
his schizophrenic hallucination appeared to be an airplane stewardess
and what happened to the real one. Maybe she wasn't a hallucination.
But it seemed so weird.
"Not yet," he said to himself, now breathing easily. "Not yet."
The plane was rolling at a comfortable pace, but soon enough, it
accelerated. George George grasped a hold of his armrests and, in
excitement, he let out a sort of muffled whee noise. When they became
airborne, his whee sound became loud enough to bother the rest of the
passengers. After only a few seconds of this thrill, flight #248 became
just like a regular old air trip for him. He promptly straightened up
and then cracked his knuckles (which popped at a volume louder than
most humans are able to do it).
***
Long after takeoff and well after the seatbelt sign flickered off,
the airplane's resident drunk suddenly remembered what he had been
after ever since he boarded the plane.
"Hey!" he drunkenly yelled. Sylvia had been neglecting her flight
attendant duties for the whole trip and was sitting in her seat in the
back and gazing off into space, thinking about the handsome man at the
front of the cabin.
"He'll never go for me," she muttered to herself.
"You waitress, you!" the drunk continued to scream. He shot his left
arm up into the air, wobbling. "I wanna martini!" Sylvia, looked at him
briefly and tried to ignore him. Sometimes that works to silence
persistent passengers.
"Now you lookee here," he continued to say. "I am the customer, and
you are the uhhhhhh waitress. When I say I wanna martini, you better
getit! See?"
Sylvia continued to ignore the drunk. She closed her eyes and
pretended to sleep. The drunk was becoming angry.
"I WANNA MARTINI!!" he hollered. The passengers guarded their ears.
Sylvia couldn't take it anymore.
"We don't have any martinis!" she yelled.
"But I don't wanna creationist," the drunk protested. "I wanna
martini!"
Sylvia's face turned crimson. She got up from her seat, extended her
index finger at the drunk and growled.
"Quiet your slobber-hole and turn around, creationist bastard!" she
yelled.
The passengers were so silent that you could hear a pin drop. (Well,
you couldn't really hear a pin drop because the engines were running,
but ? you know what I mean. The people were quiet.) Even the infant was
being careful not to make a peep. However, there was one passenger
whose primary emotion toward Sylvia the flight attendant wasn't fear;
it was fascination. George George simply couldn't overlook how
obligingly these passengers were willing to cooperate when Sylvia
spoke. Her breadth of authority was something that apparently followed
Sylvia wherever she went. And, nobody would particularly like to find
out what would happen if they crossed her unless they were insane ? or
drunk.
"Hey!" the drunkard exclaimed. "I asked you for a martini,
stewardess! ? Now, I demand that you gimme one, or I'll jus' board
ano---hhhckkkk!!!" Sylvia had obstructed his voice by hurling an
individually wrapped peanut into his mouth. He pounded his chest and
coughed. The saliva-coated peanut package flew out and landed in the
aisle.
George George continued to gawk at her. He tilted his head and hung
his mouth open. Before he realized it, Sylvia was returning the stare,
except hers wasn't in admiration. She narrowed her painted eyes,
looking as if she were trying to set his head on fire via
telekinesis.
George George gasped and turned around. He was frightened but
grinned winningly nevertheless.
