Single File Line

More and more airlines have to go out of their way to distinguish themselves from their competitors. They'll offer anything they can to entice you.

Frontier Airlines offers your own personalized tv set in the back of the headrest in front of you. For five dollars you can watch any of their 30 channels. And they offer The Food Network. Just what I need when I'm stuck eating an American Airlines tv dinner is a chef making a gourmet meal. I swear I saw Emeril point at me and laugh. If Frontier Airlines really wants to make you enjoy your flight, they should offer episodes of Fear Factor. That way when I see a contestant having to eat donkey balls .. a bag of pretzels doesn't seem so bad.

I flew AirTran on Thursday, and they offered XM Satellite Radio. Bad idea. Because XM doesn't alter their playlist for people on a plane. It's the same broadcast up there that gets played in your car or at home. So here I am and the plane is experiencing severe turbulence and Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" comes on.

Incredible bassline. Horrible timing

I had one of the worst turbulence moments in my life 2 months ago on a flight to Orlando. So bad that kids were crying, couples were holding hands. And I was writing a joke about impending death so that I would have a new 2 minutes to perform at Satan's Open Mike.

(To the comics..) Lucifer's giving 2 free drinks to each comic. Sign up before 8. Karaoke afterwards

But ever since that moment .. every time I've flown, I make sure to see who's seated in the emergency exit row. So last Thursday when I'm flying I see a 60 year old lady seated there. She's going to be our hero? Our savior? I saw her before she sat down! She had trouble opening up the overhead compartment! And then one hour later I saw her take 4 minutes to open a bag of peanuts. The last thing I want to hear while the plane is on flames is her at the emergency exit..

"Is it Left and Pull or Right and Push?"

"Lady if you don't hurry up, we're all gonna have to borrow your diaper"

We're taught at a young age to be calm in an emergency. Every fire drill I ever had in elementary school had the teacher tell all of us to get into a single file line. Alphabetically. My last name's Varghese. Great for me. The school's on fire and all the Baxters, Barnes, and Carpenters get to escape .. meanwhile me and all the Chinese kids with the last names Wong and Wang are aflame.

And if the school's on fire do I have time to go to everybody in line to find out where I fit alphabetically?

"What are you? "R"? How about you? Still "R"? I'm looking for the letter "U". Why does it matter, we're all "F"-ed."

That's why I loved my 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Herman. Because when fire drills happened we still had to line up in single file, but it was Shortest to Tallest. So had there been a 4-alarm blaze, the Asian kids and I would have all escaped.

But the black kids would have been screwed.

MEMO TO ALL ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHERS:
Teach the kids to run. It makes the fire drill that much more realistic and that much more fun. Just tell them it's recess set to warning sirens. Plus it'll encourage the out-of-shape kids to drop the twinkies .. because come Inferno time, it's survival of the fittest.

"Last one out is a rotten egg! .. I mean .. burnt toast!