This is my first entry from an airplane. It’s a small one--the plane, that is--and I’ve never felt more trapped. I’ll illustrate with a description I’ve used of another oppressive person: The attendant on this particular flight gives one the feeling of being in an elevator already uncomfortably full of people that stops to take on yet another passenger. This new passenger is huge, sweaty, loud, and dull. There’s nothing you can do to escape him: he has completely invaded your personal space, and you, pressed up against the wall are helpless. This particular flight attendant has lectured, given advice, yelled, reprimanded, laughed maniacally, banged airplane equipment against the wall, and bragged of her own education all in the first half hour. I stand in complete awe to her shameless disregard for normal social conventions. She has jettisoned them all in favor of a Misery-meets-Joan Lunden persona. I, naturally, am terrified.
The best part is, she picked on Courtney Edmonds, my debate partner and the team captain. Of all the people on this plane to pick on, Courtney is probably the last. We’re all one school, with one big funding source and a crew of lawyers already on a leash. Not to mention, she tried to argue with Courtney... and we’re a freaking debate team. Obviously we didn’t argue back at the moment--we are after all reasonable individuals who realize when the power structure does not favor us--but the palpable awareness that this poor woman, Jody, was making a fool of herself held us all in rapt attention.
I absolutely had to write this down. May its memory live forever.
