September 6, 2010

SKYE BLUE

Okay. So, we recently got back from travelling around Europe for the last three weeks, and for the record we had a fabulous time. We covered a lot of ground while we were away, and in addition to doing a whole lot of heel-toeing on concrete in each city we visited, we got around via planes, trains, automobiles and even took a ferry ride. As the seasoned travellers among you know, you’ve got to learn to take both the good and bad that come with of living out of a suitcase and hustling through airports/train stations/ferry docks in stride to avoid pulling your hair out.

As we made our way across Europe there were many highs including…

1. The British Airports Authority and the Unite union representing its workers coming to an agreement regarding pay hikes, and averting a strike that would’ve immobilised six UK airports. This of course meant that and millions of other people travelling through the UK in late August – early September weren’t left stranded and scrambling for alternate ways to get home.
2. On the ferry from Dublin to Hollyhead in Wales I struck up a conversation with a very cute boy (boy being the operative word) and a group of very drunk women (who were forced to take the ferry to Wales in hopes of catching a flight to Malta, as they weren’t allowed on the early morning flight they had booked from Dublin due to being too intoxicated to board the plane) kept us entertained by flirting wildly with every male member of the male ferry boat staff.
3. The business class airport lounges Elizabeth Rose had access to in a number of airports – who wouldn’t love having all the complimentary Walker’s shortbread cookies (God Bless the Scottish) they can handle?

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Unfortunately there were also a few lows…

1. Sweating like bush pigs as we waited in line in the terminal building of the Alicante airport, which was not air-conditioned.
2. Dealing with jetlag while trying to block out the incessant crying of what can only be described as a demon baby, in a futile effort to get some sleep.
3. Discovering that there is at least one fate worse to suffer than a crying demon baby on a long plane ride…

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We were booked on a 930pm Aer Lingus flight that would take us from lovely Alicante, Spain to Dublin, Ireland. Our ETA in Dublin was 0010 (that’s 12:10am for those of you who don’t do military time), so we were all looking forward to getting some sleep on the plane – especially since Elizabeth and Sam were determined to spend our first night in Dublin boozing it up. Unfortunately for us, a good snooze was the last thing we would get on our journey.

After making our way through the check in – where I thwarted the efforts of a woman trying to bud in the queue by politely drawing her attention to the 200 or so people who were waiting patiently behind us; indulging in a fabulously bland meal in an airport pub – at which a rather large man with an even larger gut repeatedly lifted his shirt up rub his food baby (a sight that almost burned the retinas of our eyes right out); and answering a barrage of questions about our stay in Spain in order to help a lovely mujer by the name of Regina fill her passenger survey quota that day, it was finally time to board the plane.

At first things were looking up. The Aer Lingus staff was warm, friendly and very helpful; our seats were comfy with extra leg room; and the few babies we spotted had been given calpol by the stewardesses to put them to sleep. The three of us settled into our seats, me in the window seat, Sam on the aisle and Elizabeth Rose nestled in between the two of us. Moments later the plane was taxiing down the runway for take off, and that’s about the time the trouble started…

Just as the seatbelt signs went off and my heavy eyelids started to shut someone (lacking both ‘brought-upsy’ and common decency) dropped a bomb – a stink bomb that is. As the horrifying stench hit my nostrils I reached for the laminated emergency instructions in front of me and began to waft the air.

WTF is that smell?

I turned to look at Elizabeth Rose and noticed that Sam was looking down the aisle behind us. ‘What the hell is that smell?’ I asked

‘Someone farted,’ Elizabeth said, as she pulled her scarf up over her nose. ‘I thought it was you and you were trying to waft the air away from yourself.’

‘Come on. I would at least say excuse me.’

‘Well, I wish I could say the same for whoever unleashed that stank,’ Sam said as he turned back toward us. ‘All the people behind us are gasping for fresh air too.’

‘Great.’ I continued to wave my makeshift fan for a few more minutes and the cloud of funk eventually dispersed…but not for long.

Another extremely odourific burst of wind was let loose in the cabin a few minutes later.  And then a few moments later another, and soon after that another.  By the time the sixth bomb hit, Elizabeth, who nasal passages were was still being protected (however poorly) by her scarf said – rather loudly (apparently in hopes of shaming the owner of the offending ass into the airplane toilet):

‘Good Lord! I’m trapped on a plane with someone whose ass is trying to kill me!’

Unfortunately, for us her words, the sound of me (and a host of other passengers) fanning the air frantically, and the chorus of sighs from our fellow passengers after each reeking bomb dropped did nothing to stop the malodorous onslaught. ‘The attack of the killer ass’ lasted for the first two hours – almost the entire duration of our flight.

When the plane touched down in Dublin a thunderous round of applause emanated from what seemed to me to be virtually every passenger on the plane. I can’t be sure, but I have a feeling it wasn’t just because our pilot had gotten us all to our destination safely. Perhaps our fellow passengers, much like us, were glad to able to finally escape the lingering scent of gut rot in the plane’s cabin.

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Lesson #1 from the Debauchery Tour: A crying demon baby beats a torrent of fetid fart funk on a plane any day. Really.

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