Cigarettes and Alcohol: Confessions of a Stag Weekend (16 page)

Chapter Twenty Four: Why I Hate Flying with Chewing Gum Cocks

The fourteen of us make it on to the flight home from Holland, but only just. We are the last ones to board and everyone on the plane gives us the daggers for making them all wait.

We
march down the aisle trying to find odd empty seats left available next to sober upstanding members of the general public. The other passengers are not happy that they have been sitting here waiting for a rabble of pissed up tossers to arrive.

Needless
to say we are all well mashed up. Kid M in particular is drunk and I mean rock and roll star drunk. If he had a car (which he doesn’t) and a swimming pool (which he definitely doesn’t) he would be driving one into the other in a Keith Moon stylie.

It
is a miracle that he has even been allowed to fly as he is in a right state, totally off his rocker. He has been smoking some mad gear called ‘The Widowmaker’ and it has turned his brain to mush.

For
some reason he believes we have been to Dublin all weekend. Why he has this notion is well beyond anyone, he is currently living on his own inebriated planet. He keeps yelling at the top of his lungs ‘There’s more to Ireland than this!’

He
then randomly screams out famous Irish pop bands like ‘U2! Daniel O’Donnell!’ Then he falls silent for a few minutes until he starts all over again.

Kid
M has found a seat at the front of the aircraft next to an elderly couple who are particularly unimpressed. He is shaking like a shitting dog and yelling out random crap as if he has got a terrible case of Tourettes Syndrome.

The
old crumblies look away and suddenly find something of great interest to read inside the in-flight magazine, probably an article about fisting on the French Riviera.

I
am seated at the very back of the plane and can clearly hear Kid M shouting out, ‘Thin Lizzy! The Dubliners!’

Then
a pause as he takes a breath followed by ‘There’s more to Ireland than this! The NEW Dubliners!’

This
is hilarious, to absolutely no one else on the aeroplane but to us idiots. Kid M is now interrupting the safety demonstration that the cabin crew are giving. You know what I mean that pre-flight talk when they tell you about how you can survive a crash by adopting the brace position. What a load of old scrotum.

Believe
me this pose will just break your neck quickly in a real smash ending your suffering right quick, after plunging thousands of feet at hideous speeds. My favourite line of the presentation is when they say ‘in the event of landing on water’ like it is a perfectly natural place for a plane to end up.

They
should say ‘in the event of landing on water, you are fucked because this baby is going to sink like a stone. Unless you can hold your breath for a few hours it’s game over!’

You
cannot hear a word the ‘air grumble’ is saying over the cries of: ‘The Boomtown Rats! Clannad! Riverdance!’

The
trolley dolly has had enough and half way through her spiel about emergency exits she approaches Kid M to tell him to shut his gob. She even says that she will have him removed from the flight, but it is a pretty empty threat as we are now on the runway starting our take off.

This
is the part I hate. The acceleration of the plane bombing along the tarmac and somehow getting off the ground into the air makes my insides go all watery. It just seems unnatural that a machine weighing several tons can escape gravity and get up into the sky. It scares the pants off me.

I
have the fear and sit their gripping the armrests of my chair as if that will somehow help the pilot get airborne. I am in a cold sweat and even feel I have sobered up a bit which is not a good thing as I have invested so much cash this afternoon to get out of my box.

Suddenly
Kid M starts up again ‘There’s more to Oireland dan dis!’ he shouts in a terrible fake Irish accent. ‘Dana! Saint Bob Geldof! Boys II Men!’

He
is so wrecked he means Boyzone or Westlife, but what the fuck it has us all in hysterics giggling like a load of school girls on a mad acid trip.

Kid
M is awarded the nick name ‘Paddy’ for his sterling work promoting Irish pop culture and could easily get a job on their tourist board or some such if he wanted.

After
a few more random shout-outs, my favourite being ‘Do you like dags?’ by which I assume he means dogs and not the rank sweat stains you get under the armpits of your shirts. Paddy soon runs out of steam, his batteries have emptied it’s time for a recharge.

Christ
knows what is flowing in Paddy’s veins but he crashes right out and is deep asleep. It is time for us to get our revenge on the noisy little bleeder, but more on that later…

As I have said previously in this book I fucking hate flying, always have and always will. My fear of aeroplanes does not stop me getting on one to go on holiday or on the piss for a weekender but I do get right anxious about the whole experience. I am bobbing myself from the moment I arrive at the airport and after spending the whole flight touching cloth it is only as we touch down at our destination that I start to relax.

I
blame my terror of flight on an overactive imagination. You honestly won’t believe the crazy shit that I stew over as I sit in a cramped seat thousands of feet above the ground travelling at hundreds of miles an hour biting my nails down to the quick.

I
panic that a meteorite will plunge through the atmosphere and hit the fuselage causing a huge tear in the hull of the aircraft which will suck passengers out still attached to their row of chairs hurling them towards the ground to their certain doom. I wonder whether you would freeze to death first or if it would be the impact that would kill you? I guess either way you are fucked and if this does happen no one survives to tell the tale anyhow.

I
then worry about when the plane was last checked over by the airlines maintenance guys. Was the team thorough enough in their testing or was it Friday afternoon just as the pub was calling so checks were rushed or forgotten completely?

How
about a lightning strike or clean air turbulence? I have heard about planes suddenly dropping thousands of feet and passengers who were not buckled in to their seats breaking their necks or backs as they hit the ceiling. In my head snowstorms, random clouds and even a light drizzle of rain can bring a jet down, no sweat.

Flying
over The Bermuda Triangle is obviously also a concern. Hundreds of flights have gone missing in this part of the world. Although even I do not ponder over this too much on a pan-European trip as we are miles away and going nowhere near the place. You never know though as the plane may end up getting diverted there for some obscure reason, so I can never scrub this worry fully off my ‘shitting myself list.’

I
am also ‘crapping it’ about engine failure from a bird strike, pilot error, a total loss of hydraulic power and whether there is enough fuel in the tanks? Even when I hear the ping of someone’s call button my guts start spinning around like a butter churn full of shite.

Every
time the pilot puts on the seat belt sign I convince myself that major trouble is in store. The captain is telling us over the Tannoy that we will soon be flying through minor turbulence and it is nothing to be worried about but I know that in reality we are going down quicker than a five dollar whore.

Don’t
even mention Hijack or terrorism to me but I always cast a good eye over my fellow travellers on board just in case, reassuring myself that I could spot a nasty bastard at ten paces and would ‘hero up’ if need be to prevent a catastrophe. In reality I wouldn’t, I would just sit there quietly filling up my underpants.

I
also dread alien beings in a UFO abducting the pilots in mid-air thus bringing the plane down. I definitely saw this in an episode of The X Files which as everyone knows are based on true stories. I admit this could have just been some weird old reefer induced dream I once had though and is pretty unlikely to really happen, but you never know.

My
fears of being airborne have only been reinforced by Hollywood. As special effects get better and better the aeroplane crashes in the movies get ultra-realistic and totally believable. The graphic sounds, images, smashed up body parts, twisted metal and massive explosions make my arse go well slack. Watching these films, it is almost like you are a passenger on board and on your way to an urgent appointment with The Reaper of Grimness.

If
they wanted to totally terrify the entire plane during a flight they should just serve up the following films on a continuous loop to all the lowlife in cattle class:

1]
Final Destination
. The plane becomes a huge fireball, it’s never explained why, it just does. Death by melting!

2]
Die Hard 2
. The baddies reset sea level by two hundred feet on the radar so as the aircraft comes in to land they are way too low and hits the deck like a blue bottle fly hitting your windscreen. Big Boom! Dental records required for body identification.

3]
Fight Club
. Two planes into the same air space do not go. It’s a long way down if you have not packed a parachute. Night, night!

4]
Cast Away
. Plane comes down in a hurricane and you end up the sole survivor on a desert island with only a volley ball to converse with. This would probably be preferable to being stuck with some of the riff raff they allow on planes today. DIY dentistry with the blade from an ice skate is also available.

5]
Alive
. Proof, if you need any, that you cannot fly a plane when the fucking tail has come off it after hitting a mountain in The Andes. This movie is based on a true story so is even more distressing as they have no food left and have to chow down on the corpses of their friends. Bet it tasted better than a horsemeat burger.

6]
Fearless
. Plane comes down well hard. If Jeff Bridges touched your shoulder as he wandered through the cabin before the crash you survived. If not, you are well over cooked and crispy by now. You will not be able to have an open coffin at your funeral.

7]
Knowing
. Aircraft added to overhead power lines gives you bad CGI fires. This movie has got great sound effects of tearing metal and a well mangled up airframe to recommend this scene to the discerning lover of air crash porn.

8]
The Grey
. An arty crash sequence but still shit me up, where has the side of the plane gone? Survivors end up as wolf tucker.

Hopefully
after reading all this old tosh about my flying fears, I have somehow managed to infect you with my concerns then I won’t be the only prat hyper-ventilating during the next flight I have to take. Enjoy! Welcome aboard Flight Paranoia.

And so the time has come for us to teach dear old Paddy a lesson. He has been silent for at least ten minutes now, deep asleep due to all the illicit substances he has snuffled up.

Revenge
will be ours. Amnesty has a big pack of chewing gum which he has been dishing out to all the lads sitting around the plane.

Everyone
is chewing away like a cow chomping down on some cud. Amnesty has told us all to mould little cock and bollocks out of the gum which we will then stick on to Paddy’s face.

It
is a military operation. One at a time we go into stealth mode and creep up the aisle to where Paddy is giving it some pretty major Z time. Then as quietly as possible we affix the penis of chewy onto Paddy’s boat race.

Somehow
we manage not to wake him as it is a real effort not to scream with laughter at the sleeping simpleton, as he looks well funny with a face covered in tiny nobs.

By
the time we have all paid him a visit, Paddy looks like that Pinhead demon creature in the Hellraiser flicks but with miniature meat and two veg all over him, not razor sharp pins.

He
has become a living breathing work of modern art, we could string him up in The Tate and all retire on the dosh we would be paid for our handiwork.

People
are walking down the plane to point and chuckle at the comatose chap with a canister covered in chewing gum cocks.

It
is brilliant. Even the cabin crew come along and take photographs of the buffoon to show to their mates. They love it and ship us in some free tinnies of lager to thank us for cutting the gobby tosser down to size.

Paddy
is snoring away still in blissful ignorance of the fact that he has a face full of mini man meat models. A legend is made, a star is born.

Unfortunately
the peace and quiet does not last long. Soon the beast awakens and he is not happy. We can see Paddy pulling off all the gum-nadgers off his face. In his drunken state he has managed to get some of the sticky stuff stuck in his Barnet and he is going spare.