So, I am stranded on a low cost flight at 35,000 ft with a gaggle of fellow passengers who are promenading up and down the aisle like an Italian seaside resort in August. Finally settling and decamping around the rear toilet at the back of the aircraft, we have just climbed 10,000ft because of the shift in weight
A lone young teenage traveller with bottle glasses seems to have lost his bag in the maze of overhead lockers. Understandably his fellow passengers have chipped in to help, they seemingly have decided and without any consultation with each other to unload every overhead locker on the port side of the aircraft. The international rescue mission was never going to go smoothly on account of one of the good Samaritans being blind, and everyone assuming the lead role, each one barking commands to absolutely no one at all.
Our teenager in the meantime has located his bag, on the other side of the cabin, he quietly recovers it, removes the holy grail that the entire left-hand side of the plane is now seeking and then, sits without any word to the chaos ensuing in front of everyone from row 52 backwards.
The most brilliant air hostess realising at an early stage that this was not anything in the airline manual and the best course of action was to sit back and watch, which she did, mouth gasping for air and head in hands. By some cosmic connection, the air hostess and I locked onto each other and both mouthed at the same time “A Large Bloody Mary”, followed by a massive affirmative nod from me.
Then a lone baby starting yelling from somewhere in the depths of row 60, a new-born chain reaction then began, dragging every baby on the plane into a game of “I can scream louder than you”. Mothers heads popped up over the seat backs like a colony of Meerkats, their heads rotating a full 360 degrees to survey the geography of baby yelling and then, disappearing back down behind the seat.
Time for the captain, a person of great importance on an aeroplane and generally when they grace us with their virtual presence over the cabin tannoy, we listen. Naaa, the circus stopped for a nano second until they realised it was only the captain!
I could see the cabin crew now preparing for a mincer movement, like a SWOT team, they puffed themselves up into a formidable force and from both end of the aircraft they swooped into action. The very brightness of the veneered teeth shining through a gritted smile provided enough of a threat to mankind that all the offending unruly passengers returned to their seats.
I think the cosmic air hostess sprayed the crying children with some Nanny McFee deodorant because they all stopped crying at the same time, the Meerkat mums popping up again, each with a perplexed face that wrinkled just a little more as they clocked each other.
And order is returned, “another Bloody Mary sir”