to vote for favorites. Only 6 votes needed to get on the list.I had to go to Anchorage Alaska recently for a business trip. On the trip up there I had my earphones firmly shoved in my head from most of the flight. At one point I did notice a gentleman in the aisle with a huge smile on his face and firmly gripping a bible. I thought that was a weird choice for light reading on the plane, but figured he might be a priest.
Turns out the guy is not a priest he’s just crazy, or maybe he’s a crazy priest. Anyway, about 30 minutes before landing I see the dude talking kind of loudly in the aisle and he just looks, I don’t know, off. This already qualifies as more interesting than the magazine I am flipping through, so I take my earphones out and start to pay attention. He has kind of worked himself up a little bit and wants to do some preaching. He was talking about Jesus and said some things like “Get Baptized! Your savior is coming!” and other religious enthusiasms. I will note here that the line I just quoted was as threatening a statement as I heard the man make.
Now here is were the story could get really interesting. Except it doesn’t. Yes, I’m a a little sad as well. Frankly I was hoping for at least some drama, but it was kind of anti climatic.
Basically the guy really wanted to talk about God and do it loudly. The flight crew did not want to talk about God, loudly or other wise. Turns out that, at least while on an airplane, a gay man in an ugly polyester uniform must be heeded. Which, I strongly suspect, is at least half the attraction of the job. The consequences of not following the instructions of said man are pretty severe. They enlisted the help of a passenger, whom I suspect was a plain clothed Air Marshal, and put those plastic zip tie type handcuffs on the guy. Interestingly the guy I think was the Air Marshal wouldn’t own up to it when I quizzed him about it later, but I’m pretty sure. The plane was stopped at the far end of the runway, it was surrounded by emergency vehicles, we were all deplaned onto the tarmac and lined up, all of our carry on luggage was searched by bomb sniffing dogs, we were bused to the terminal, gave our names to an FBI guy, and then went on our way. Total delay: about 40 minutes.
I don’t know what happened to the guy. I assume it was latex glove time. Which is a shame, he just seemed like a poor guy who was off his meds. He was clearly crazy, but it was more of a “I like to eat paste!” crazy than it was “I’m going to stab you with this screw driver” crazy. He looked like a kid who had eaten too much sugar, kind of antsy to get up, but not fighting or violent in any way. When they asked him to put his hands behind his back for the handcuffs I figured we might see some action, but he just did it, meek as a lamb. All in all it was much ado about nothing. The whole thing involved eight different types of emergency vehicles and about 20 specialized security staff. I was left wondering what the fuck all these people did on a normal day at the tiny Anchorage airport.
I thought this part was kind of funny too. Two flight attendants were handling the guy; the gay dude and a little blond lady. She reminded me of the kid who gets put in charge of the class when the teacher has to leave the room. Given that unusual authority, unfettered ability to exercise it, and an audience, many kids in that situation feel obliged to put on a bit of a show of being in charge. You know, laying down the law, emphasizing rules, taking names, and kicking ass. This flight attendant had a bit of that going. Whenever the attendant at the front would make an announcement about how we were getting off or landing in these special circumstances our girl at the back would have to clarify something to us. You are absolutely right girl, this is as exciting as its going to get. Take charge. Tell us how it is! She was funny.
On the flight back from Alaska some guy took a nose dive in the aisle about 20 minutes into the flight. He remained there on oxygen until we landed and they managed to serve all the drinks around him. I thought “Man, you got to pick up your game. Spit up blood, or vomit on somebody’s lap. We had crazy priest on the way up here! This guy is fucking phoning it in!”
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