E-Club ProThe Comedy Zone
Grumpy Old Magician On A Plane
In the course of my life as a pro magician I am lucky enough to get to lecture and perform at various events around the world. I love the trips and almost always have a great time. But when you do this a fair bit, certain aspects can start to become irritating, and plane flights certainly fall into that category. Never mind the interminable waiting around at the airport being forced to listen to endless final call announcements for Mr. Zango Bingrat to catch his flight or his luggage will be removed from the plane and destroyed in a controlled explosion on the runway, or the fact that you virtually have to strip naked to go through security, worse than all of this is the lottery of who you will end up sitting next to when you finally get shoehorned into the plane.
Unless you fly EasyJet, where the freedom to choose your own seat at least gives you a sporting chance of sitting next to someone half decent (although why am I ALWAYS in boarding group B?), with most airlines you will have an allocated place and the only chance to change it is when you check yourself in and it's too early to know whether you want to change it then in any case. As a result you clamber into the flying metal tube nervously waiting to see who you will be forced to spend the next few hours of your life with - and often it is not a pleasant experience. Here are a few examples of passenger types that I have flown with.....
The Fidget. OK, some people get nervous when they fly, but this guy really has the jumps. Dressed in dirty jeans and a baseball cap (which he removes at regular intervals to frantically scratch his scalp), Mr. Fidget spends the whole flight scratching his groin, wriggling in his seat, messing with the literature in the seat back pocket, and nervously glancing up and down the plane. Even the two cans of beer that he consumes doesn't seem to calm him down. Thank God it isn't a long haul flight or I think I would have either caught fleas or need to flee!
The Conversationalist. You know when you've got one of these because they actually say 'hello' when you first sit down next to them. Call me anti-social (actually I am anti-social) but when I'm flying I am quite happy to mind my own business and catch up on the reading that I never have time to do when I'm at home. So, I get my big fat book out and settle down for a few introverted hours. But, no such luck when you sit next to the Conversationalist. "Off on holiday then?" Oh no. And so it starts. At first just the odd sporadic question or comment ("Wow, look how fluffy the clouds look from up here"), which I manfully try to answer with words of less than one syllable in an attempt to convey to him that I really don't want to talk, but Mr. C. completely ignores the signals because he doesn't have a book to read (or maybe he can't read!) and anyway he is just BURSTING to tell me his life story in excruciating detail. The only way to break out of the nightmare is to get up and go to the toilet - but just how long can you spend in there without alarming the stewardesses?
The Blob. People come in all shapes and sizes, of course, but some people really are way up there on the outsize scale, and to be honest some planes simply aren't designed for these gargantuan people. So you're the centre seat of a cosy line of three and either side of you are two man mountains. The net effect of having very large travelling companions on either side of you is that your physical space gets squeezed right down until you almost have to breathe in just to get seated. You will definitely not win the battle of the arm rests, and the heat generated by these huge bodies is enough to rocket you into a hot flush. And if you want to get out of your seat for any reason - forget it. You'll be lucky to get out even after the plane stops.
The Child. I appear to be a child magnet. If I am sitting at the gate waiting to board and in a room of 200 adults there is one small child or baby, I can almost guarantee that I will be sitting next to, one row in front of, or one row behind that child. It's quite uncanny! Little children make totally rubbish passengers. They don't like being strapped in, they cry when the cabin pressure hurts their ears, and they don't understand why they have to sit still when they are used to running around the whole time. Net result, constant screaming that's enough to make your ears bleed. Toddlers like to stand up when they are in the row in front of you and stare at you over their seat back. And it's really hard to read when someone is constantly looking at you. If the child is in the row behind you, they will constantly kick the back of your seat, remove and return things endlessly in your seat back pocket, and if you are really unlucky, will try and pull your hair or remove the headrest cloth from the back of your seat. Personally, I think all children should be stowed with the rest of the luggage.
The Sleeper. One advantage of the Sleeper is that at least you don't have to engage in mind numbing conversation. Nor does the person tend to fidget. They may snore and they may slump down and lean all over you while covering your shoulder in little rivulets of saliva dribble, but on the whole they don't make the worst travel companions. Unless they happen to be sitting immediately in front of you. Now I can't afford to travel Business Class, so the leg room on most flights back in the 'cheap' seats is limited at the best of times, especially on transatlantic flights. So it's hugely annoying when moments after take off the person sitting in front of you immediately reclines their seat. If you need to open your tray table when the food comes round, the edge of the table almost digs into your stomach. If you are trying to watch a flim on the seat back TV, suddenly your nose is virtually pressed up against the screen making it hugely uncomfortable. If you drop something on to the floor, it is almost physically impossible to bend down into the restricted space to pick it up. And if you want to get out, you really need grappling hooks to assist you to squeeze through.
The Beautiful Woman. The seat beside you is empty. You look up and walking down the aisle towards you is a gorgeous young woman with blond hair and a short skirt. She slides into the seat next to you and crosses her tanned legs, flashing you a friendly smile.....no, that never happens. Just when flying would become tolerable, you realise you're fantasising!
