Occasionally a prose poem will appear out of nowhere. Here’s one of them:
“Ladies and gentlemen,
This is your cabin attendant speaking to you today,
from the back of the plane.
We are preparing for our descent,
into chaos and turmoil
and who knows what else in New York.
As many of you know,
right about now we would be instructing you
to fasten your seatbelts
but our captain has told us to inform you
that we have a special treat for you today.
He has assigned one of his trainees
to land the airplane today,
because the guy still needs to get certified,
and based upon our captain’s experience as the guy’s instructor,
neither a seat belt nor anything else will help
if this guy doesn’t do better than he did
the last time he took this test and landed the plane.
To be fair, no one was killed in that landing,
but just shy of 100 travelers were hospitalized for several weeks.
I really can’t say much more about that at this time,
because of various privacy laws,
that restrict us significantly,
and also of course because of pending litigation.
As always, privacy is front and center
when we are discussing the incompetence of any of our employees.
In any event we can’t do anything about it right now,
because a few minutes ago when the pilot and the real copilot
stepped out of the cockpit to go to the toilet,
(their toilet in the cockpit is out of order)
the trainee,
who’s flying the plane right now,
locked them out of the cockpit.
But not to worry.
The captain says dude has improved his landing skills
and should be able to take her down, this time,
without too much of a bounce,
so the captain has decided to let you choose
whether to lock yourself into one position,
or to sit loosely in your seat,
or even get up and walk around
to give yourself some flexibility during the landing.
Out of an abundance of caution,
and dedication to our customers,
the captain has even asked us to open the liquor cabinets to all,
during this descent.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen,
We hope you enjoy your stay in Atlanta.
Wait, here comes the captain now.
It looks like he’s raided the liquor cabinet himself,
and is headed back here!
Cool!
He’s got his pockets stuffed with these little liquor bottles
from up in first class!
They say the safest place in a crash is back here.
Looks like party time to me!”