Flying

The Onion gets us started

All Flights Grounded After FAA Officials Suddenly Realize That Man Was Not Meant To Fly

WASHINGTON—Shortly after 3 p.m. today, the Federal Aviation Administration ordered the immediate grounding of all commercial and private aircraft, a result of top officials' collective realization that humankind was never meant to fly. "It is wrong—nay, foolish—for lowly man to aspire to the realm of birds and dare to soar across the firmament in unholy flight," said FAA administrator Randy Babbitt, announcing the indefinite cancellation of all 87,000 daily flights through U.S. airspace. "Alas, man's destiny lies not amongst the clouds. So let us be guided by hubristic folly no longer and embrace our terrestrial provenance." Addressing concerns from thousands of disaffected passengers, Babbitt also stated that man was not meant to be reunited with any luggage that had been bumped onto a later flight.


We're going out to California. The bright side is that we'll be in CA, which is loosely known as the place where God intended man to reside. The bad news is, and this is sort of surreal, that we'll be the people on the flight with the baby. It's somewhat hard to imagine. I mean, I'm fairly used to s at this point, but I'm not ready for an airport with a baby. Airports are stressful experiences all the way around, everyone is flustered and standing too close to one another and in a hurry or kind of in a hurry etc. etc. One or the other of us is generally irritable because airports are designed to make people irritable. One of us is always more in a hurry or more put together than the other. And now we're throwing a baby in the mix. Have mercy on the person who sits next to us.

Also, I'm convinced every time I fly that I'm probably going to die, so you can add that to the list of anxieties for this whole flight thing. Every time I manage to not die in flight I remind myself to never book another flight, and then I proceed to book a flight again. Ah, the folly of man. So, yeah, I'm just hoping that s sleeps the whole time and doesn't realize that man wasn't meant to fly, nor baby, and begins crying, as a result, like a wild banshee. I'm starting to sweat just thinking about it. Or maybe it's the fact that I had to wake up so gd early. That always clouds my thoughts. I have a tendency on these mornings that I wake early to stand still, like prey trying to avoid predator, while I decide whether to wear brown shoes or grey ones. And I will go back and forth on it in a way that I wouldn't if I was well-rested, and eventually I'll have to snap myself out of this stasis, just standing in our half-lit, sunken ship like room, worrying about my shoes, and remind myself that nobody gives a good gd what pair of shoes I wear except myself and that it's time to get out the door.

Do you think they'll let us put the pack and play together on the flight? Wouldn't it be better for all of us? I wonder if the in-flight movie is going to suck. Remember that time I almost started crying after Marley and Me. I mean, it's a movie with a dog, of course the gd thing is going to die. How did you not see it coming? Is it too much to ask that every person on the flight remain quiet and still while she sleeps? Can I ask the person next to me to hold her if S and I are both tired. "She's a good baby, just don't look at her nose or she'll bite you."

Or "Here, take her. We don't know her name yet. We're waiting for her to tell us."

Or "She's a good sleeper as long as you don't breathe. That bothers her."

Or "She's her mother's daughter, which is unfortunate because her mother's a bit of a crier."

Or "Look, it could be much worse, you could be sitting next to a werewolf. Would you like that buddy? I bet you would until it bit off your head. Now don't you feel lucky to at least have your head? Ungrateful bastar-."

Or "Don't worry, she usually only cries for the first three hours."

Or "Man, lucky you, getting stuck next to a baby. Remember that point when the pressure changes and your ears go all weird. Guess what? She can't talk, so she's going to just have to scream it out." Later: "That's right honey. Scream it out. Don't let the devil get in there."


Here.