On a plane this weekend, the pilot warned us other pilots had warned him we were about to go through some pretty crazy turbulence, so he was turning on the seatbelt sign and instructing the flight attendants to sit down as well. Then everything was calm for ten minutes. Then the plane was kicked by God. People screamed, drinks escaped their plastic cups and headed for the ceiling. Then it stopped, and then it sounded like the plane was really FLYING, the way it rarely does, the engine whining and everything, effort apparent. Then another God-kick. Then more loud, labored flying. God-kick. More flying.
Then it all settled down. The pilot came on and, in the calm, vaguely Southern tones that every pilot seems to have, which I learned from the book “The Right Stuff” are descended from Chuck Yeager, hot-shot test pilot and living, breathing West Virginia drawl, said something about how we got jostled a little and for those of us who didn’t fly a lot we might not realize how that kind of thing is normal, but it is. He said he would keep the seatbelt sign on for a few minutes but that the worst was probably over. The Asian kid in the noise-cancelling headphones across the aisle from me looked over. We both laughed.
“Now that we’re alive,” he said, “it’s kind of funny.”
It’s cliché to end a mundane story with the comment of a stranger followed by some sentiment along the lines of “…and isn’t that what life is,” but that is EXACTLY what life is.
