Wednesday 19 May 2010

Oi Cromarty, your mums a baggage handler

Plymouth to Inverness Ryan Air Flight 836

A short time after take off...

BING BONG! “Attention cabin crew, this is first officer Johnson speaking, please could hostess Cromarty report to the cockpit immediately.” What he doesn’t mention is that Captain Blueboulles head’s gone purple (again).

Moments later...

An automated warning sounds out: “Please remain seated.” The seat belt sign comes on and the plane jerks through the sky awkwardly. Women are crying and men are being sick in their beards. But just as quickly as it all began the plane levels out and the shrieking dies down.

BING BONG! “Attention passengers, this is the captain speaking. Apologies for the disturbance, the tip of the plane entered an area of low resistance for a brief moment, but I’ve managed to withdraw us from the body of the problem for now. Please sit back, relax and enjoy the rest of the flight.”

Hostess Cromarty leaves the cockpit exhausted and freewheels down the aisle on her trolley. Like a pro she gets all the way to the back of the plane on one push but forgets to put the brake on and is sent flying head first into the disabled toilet and is knocked out cold. The door slams shut behind her.

Literally minutes go by without the business class passengers being given extra peanuts and heated towels due to hostess Cromarty’s disappearance. The suit-wearing, peanut-starved business men are beginning to grumble but this is nothing compared to the chaos consuming the back rows of the plane. The bearded men, panicking, shake their heads from left to right, flicking puke into the eyes of children beneath them. A small boy gets out of his seat to go for a wee but is blinded as a thick wad of partially digested chicken chasseur gets him in the eyes. Still desperate for a wee, the young boy feels his way to the first toilet he finds and unleashes a torrent of warm yellow heaven.

As the little boy wrings out the very last drop, he clears the chewed strands of chicken from his eyes and meets the gaze of another pair: one eye staring right back up at him, the other drifting round the cubicle as if in a daydream.

Meanwhile, on the floor, Hostess Cromarty feels relaxed, enjoying the final touches of a facial at Sollies, her favourite Portsmouth beauty spa. The seaweed wrap is warmer and saltier than usual, and then she thinks it strange to be tasting the seaweed wrap at all.

“Where is Miss Mahoon, who usually does my facials?” she whispers to the small boy washing his hands next to her. The boy ignores her studiously and scampers back to his seat.

Confused hostess Cromarty rises to her feet, her hands pushing against the sides of the cubicle to balance. It becomes clear she is not at Sollies after all. Pulling the toilet door ajar reveals a battleground of leaking sick bags and her ransacked drinks trolley, leaning to one side and bleeding tomato juice. Empty packets of peanuts are strewn along the aisle.

BING BONG! “Attention cabin crew, this is first officer Johnson speaking. Can hostess Cromarty report to the cockpit.” The captain is refusing to land the plane until hostess Cromarty make his usual ‘going down’ drink.

Hostess Cromarty promptly slams the toilet door shut and slumps over the basin, waiting for this nightmare to end. As if giving him the hind lick manoeuvre wasn’t enough for one day.

Later...

Back on the ground, hostess Cromarty is in no rush to go anywhere and remains locked in the toilet cubicle until all the nut-scoffing suits and sick-stained economy passengers disembark. She stays where she is until the cleaning team go in, break open the door and drag her by her elbows the length of the plane. Her heels dig into the carpet, cutting through the lakes of tomato juice and assorted trolley snacks. They leave her propped up against the outside wall of the terminal building.

Still, it’s not all bad. In the back of her mind she knows she’ll be with Barry soon, her Inverness infatuation. Barry the baggage handler, who’d recently been promoted to managing an entire carousel at the Inverness arrivals lounge. Barry, proud of his new job title and not-too-shabby pay rise (£8.50 per hour) was keen to treat hostess Cromarty to a slap up meal. The two are reunited in the short stay car park by the designated smokers area, where Scotland’s flagship Little Chef rises from the grey paving like a beacon of hope for foodies in a land where Iron Bru and battered Mars bars are considered 2 of your 5-a-day.

Hostess Cromarty doesn’t speak much during their meal, but Barry can’t help himself. “I’m sure you’ve done something new with your hair?... Your skin is positively glowing...”
And then begins making outlandish promises: “Next time you’re here it will dinner to two at the Toby Carvery!” Cromarty isn’t listening to a word Barry says as she slowly falls into a grease induced coma. She also neglects to notice Barry’s new Ben Sherman shirt. In Barry’s mind, this can only mean one thing: tonight is the night.

He desperately wants to express how he feels about hostess Cromarty physically, but it’s not clear from Cromarty’s slurs what she’s trying to say.
“Take mez toilez? OK!”
“I thought you’d never ask! Here let me wipe the peas off your chin”.

THE END
By Joe Weitz

3 comments:

  1. ha ha ha! geez barry must have been a very happy fellow to make out with puke. wtf...?

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  2. this never happens on easyjet - you must have been on Ryanair.

    As a biochemist you are probably aware of two facts discovered at Irn Bru University, Glasgow.

    FACT 1: battered mars bars are very high in essential vitamins C, R, A and P.

    FACT 2: Irn Bru is a well-known source of amino acid sulphur hydroxy -1-Teabag, better known as S- H one T.

    ReplyDelete
  3. More! More! Next instalment of the Barry/Hostess Cromarty pukodrama please...and when do we get to meet Cromarty's mum?

    ReplyDelete