Flight Sickness 

    Pradeep was terrified of flying. Well, its not like he never would take a flight, but whenever he did, he’d be the guy stuck somewhere in the middle, never brave enough to ask for a window or aisle seat, so invariably you’d find him stuck in row Q seat 12, in between some irate family and some fat guy who Pradeep didn’t have the gumption to ask to get up when he had to go to the bathroom. So most flights, Pradeep would just sit there shaking and wait for the flight to finish before he took a leak. You know the kind of guy. 

    So this story begins when Pradeep had to fly out to New York for a school interview. Being from Los Angeles, he couldn’t drive the distance so fuck it, he thought. Just a five-hour flight - how bad could it be? So he went over to Artesia, talked to a few different travel agents and got the best price for a Friday evening flight from LAX to JFK. Things weren’t looking so bad for Pradeep; the weather was warm and sunny, even in the middle of December, he didn’t get outright extorted on the ticket price, and he’d probably get the admission he was looking for in New York at least by the beginning of the New Year. So exactly two days before his flight, Pradeep started packing his bags (he always packed early – didn’t want to rush a trip to the airport – especially if he was the one flying).  

    Friday morning things didn’t go exactly as planned for Pradeep. His alarm clock didn’t go off at 6:15 in the morning, so he missed his morning workout and woke up at 7:00, which was rough because he had work at 8:00 in Mission Nuevo, which was a good 45 minutes away if traffic wasn’t too bad. So he jumped out of bed and made a cup of coffee. Looking in the fridge, he couldn’t find any whole milk. “Forget it,” he thought. “I’ll have to skip the coffee.” As he was taking a shower the hot water didn’t seem to be working properly so he was semi-freezing the whole time. As he made his way back to the kitchen he grabbed the newspaper to take to work, but someone had left a mug of orange juice on top of the paper so when he grabbed the “Calendar” section the mug slipped and fell on the tiles below, smashing into a few pieces and splashing orange juice on his pants. Pradeep spent a few minutes cleaning that up, his blood pressure slowly rising the entire time.  

    Then as he finally left his pad, he saw the back gate was wide open and his dog probably had bailed. He saw the brown mutt half way down the block pissing on some soccer mom’s SUV tire. Pradeep was getting pretty stressed by this point. It was 7:40 and he needed to get to work. So he ran down the clean suburban street in his work clothes, grabbed the brown dog by his collar and dragged him home. The entire time the dog was resisting his pull, and the collar came right off. Then the dog ran off again. Pradeep was losing his patience, flipping out in the middle of the street, screaming at the top of his lungs in lurid detail how he’d sell the mutt to “The Koreans”. The neighbors were watching him. Finally the dog got the hint and came back – Pradeep then dragged him home. 

    As Pradeep made his way to work he saw that the gas gauge was on empty and the yellow light was flashing. “Fuck,” he said out loud. His brainy wife probably used the car yesterday and didn’t fill gas. But that didn’t matter now. It was 7:50 in the morning and Pradeep had to fill gas. He spent the next several minutes filling a tank at the overpriced Chevron close to his house.  

    On the freeway, things got worse for Pradeep. On the 405 Southbound, a Ford Excursion, a Toyota Tundra X-tra Cab, a Chevy Suburban, and a Geo Metro all somehow got in a monstrous pileup. Being that most of the cars involved in this wreck were gigantic, the wreck took up exactly 3.5 lanes of the freeway. As he drove by the destruction, he saw the Excursion flipped over and burning on the other side of the freeway. Somehow it had launched over the median. The engine of the Suburban had exploded. The Tundra’s wheels had flown in four different directions, while the Geo looked like Godzilla himself had stepped on it. It looked to Pradeep like the death of civilization as he knew it. Definitely a bad omen. After a good 40 minutes of rotting in bumper-to-bumper traffic, he passed the traffic block and drove the usual trip to work, without hassle except for the small halt somewhere in the Orange Curtain. 

    As Pradeep made his way from the parking lot to work, he put on his jacket and realized that he smelled of dog. His dog probably rubbed against him when he was dragging him in. There was nothing he could do about it now, except he wished his wife would give the mutt a bath every now and then. He looked on his palm-pilot PDA and checked his schedule for the day. He had a meeting at 9:25. It was only 9:27 so he ran into the meeting room, not stopping except to show the security guard his ID badge.  

    The meeting was boring as usual. Some 32-year-old computer accountant in a power suit was eagerly talking about cluster application software, cracking jokes and laughing to herself. When she told the same joke about the cluster application software “talking” to the ENS 7000 (a million dollar computer that Pradeep worked on daily) everyone in the room chuckled heartily. Pradeep looked at the table around him. He was the only person drinking coffee, as everyone else in his office these days drank Diet Coke, even at 9:00 in the morning. To his direct left was seated the over ambitious white kid who was surfing the Internet on his wireless Internet connection. This guy would keep playing Tetris or whatever he was doing even if someone was talking directly to him. His Uncle was the Co-Founder of Microsys, so there was nothing anyone could do. Plus, the young programmer was pretty smart – in one day he coded two programs once without a single error. The intern on his right was taking notes on her laptop, as if everything said during this meeting was going to be on an exam of some sort. Pradeep was slowly losing his mind. 

    At lunchtime, he was mobbed by the same gang to go to lunch. The gang consisted of five people including himself. There was Rajan, the Indian-American programmer who seemed like he should have been in Office Space, there was Jason, the white guy who also should have been in Office Space, and there were the two other guys, who could have been in Office Space also. Rajan was a surfy dude who loved video games and basketball. He usually wore wraparound sunglasses and Quicksilver shirts. Jason was the nerdy white guy who was constantly jocking or dating random Asian girls. Both of these guys loved their computers, and were almost always using the AOL instant messenger. They would often instant message each other with work related or non-work related chat. The other two guys were, well, the other two guys. Hey, his lunch group was pretty mellow compared to the other groups. There was the white guy jock group, who sat around talking about baseball and “jail-bait” and “dropping the soap” and played basketball every Thursday at lunch. A frequent topic of conversation among this group was whether golf was a sport or a hobby. Then there were the hardcore programmers, who had lunch in their cubicles. And there were also the “cool people”, who ate lunch at the coolest restaurant of the week – every other group invariably ate lunch in the cool group restaurant, but they did it around the end of the week once they found out where the cool group was going to eat.  

    So today seemed like any other Friday. Rajan ran up to Pradeep and was practically shaking with excitement. “Dude, dude, lets go eat lunch today at Taco Pequeno! That place has some dope specials on Fridays!” Pradeep was sitting outside with the smoker group, older Vietnamese burnout guys who didn’t really fit in with the other crowds. “I hate that fucking place. The tacos are always too damn small and they charge like 2 bucks for a coke.” Rajan was clearly not swayed. “Naw man, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Plus, Vi is going to be there and Jason and the rest of the guys are already going...”  

    Vi was the leader of the “cool group.” Actually, this group wasn’t cool at all, and Pradeep knew it, but everyone else at Microsys kissed their ass. Every time Vi walked down the hallways of Microsys, all her followers would say “Hiiii Viiii!!” And then she’d glance at them while still walking and say, “oh hi.” The response would never change. They’d be so happy that she talked to them almost. The latest buzz was always what cool clothes Vi was wearing, or where Vi was eating today. The cool group would often decide where to eat, perhaps Pasta Portuga on Tuesday, but all they needed to change it was for Vi to say, “…no not Pasta Portuga, that place is gross! Let’s eat at Rubio’s.” That’s it. Then they’d eat at Rubio’s.  

    So anyway, Rajan and Jason and Pradeep and the other guys ended up going to Taco Pequeno, by far the hippest spot in Mission Nuevo. Mission Nuevo was a typical South Orange County suburban city; miles and miles of blocks of pink stucco houses all almost identical interspersed with trendy type strip malls, filled with stores like “Cha for Tea” and “Barnes and Nobles.” The average engine size of any automobile in Mission Nuevo was a V-8. Starbucks was not yet blasé. This place was pretty intense. SUV soccer mom’s who didn’t really work but got extremely offended if you said “oh so you don’t work” were constantly chilling in this town with a random blond looking child in a stroller. Outside of Taco Pequeno some little boy was trying to ollie his skateboard off a curb. Pradeep noticed that the kid had a helmet and kneepads on, while his little friend, also sporting a new helmet, was filming him with an expensive looking digital camera. “How gay,” Pradeep thought to himself. Rajan kept going on and on about how he was excelling at Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4, and Jason and him were discussing loudly how to get to the secret level. They went to the counter and took their orders.  

    As Pradeep was carrying his Ice-T to his table, he was suddenly distracted by something loud, like Rajan yelling about how he learned kick-flip 900’s. He kind of slipped, no, it was almost as if on purpose Pradeep pushed the full cold glass of large Ice T off of his tray right onto some little kid’s head while the child was sleeping in its stroller and its Mom was helping herself to some napkins.

    Not surprisingly, the toddler started wailing. Oh well, Pradeep thought. I’ll just get another one. As he went back to the counter to grab another glass, the Mother turned hysterical, flipping out at him. “I saw you do that! I’ll sue you! I’ll call the cops! You aren’t even from around here you, you, you monster!! Totally unfazed, Pradeep ignored her, merely filled up his glass, and sat down with his buddies who were oblivious as usual to their surroundings. 

    After lunch at Taco Pequeno, Pradeep and the gang cruised outside to kick it with other people from Microsys for a few minutes before they all drove back to the main building. The rest of Pradeep’s day passed by relatively uneventfully, as he had to test his code for the ENS 7000. Around 3:45, he needed to bail work. His code had numerous bugs and viruses, but he had a flight to catch at LAX. As he was leaving the room, his boss caught up to him and rebuked him for trying to “leave early.” She mentioned something about his coworkers complaining that “he never is on time, and he always leaves work early and never wants to work weekends...”  

       So Pradeep was stuck working until 5:00 PM. Unfortunately, he had an 8:00 flight. As he left the building, it started to drizzle then rail.

Orange County drivers are notorious for their lack of skills in the rain, especially when they are driving

    a) SUV’s

    b) Raised pickup trucks

    c) Minivans

    So as usual, some moron had wrecked his BMW X5 near the El Toro Parkway. His car was twenty feet up in a tree. Pradeep could not figure out how the car had gotten that high. Anyway, traffic was slow all the way home. As Pradeep entered his driveway, he was stressing out. His day had been pretty intense so far, and the last thing he wanted to do was go on an airline flight. He parked his car and saw that the back gate was still open. He hadn’t shut it from that same morning, and that brown dog probably took off again. Pradeep spent the next 45 minutes tracking the dog around the neighborhood. 6:45. Pradeep had a flight at 8:00, and he had to take off. He dragged the dog inside and locked the gate and shut the door. He started to drive away but realized that he forgot his luggage, and his laptop. He went back, got his things and sped full speed ahead to LAX. To make a long story short, Pradeep got on the flight no problem, except getting a cold stare from a surly pig at the airport. He barely made it on his flight, luckily, and his blood pressure slowly returned to normal.  

    As he got on board the 747, he noticed that he was jostling in line for his seat. Fuck! It was a crowded flight. Even the captain mentioned something about it “being crowded tonight so please passengers try to watch the onboard (or was it the inline) entertainment and please be patient because it will be stormy so there will be turbulence,” or something like that. The baby on his direct right had already started crying, and Pradeep smelled poop. The guy on his direct left already started drinking, and Pradeep knew he’d get wild soon enough. The flight took off, and all the kids onboard started crying in unison. It was as if they knew there were Gremlins on the side of the aircraft, pulling out wires and breaking shit. Pradeep tried to watch the movie but he had no headphones. He pulled out his Discman but the headphones didn’t match the outlets on the handset. So he rang the bell for the airhostess to give him a headset.

    “That’ll be five dollars please”

“Five fucking dollars?! For a headset?”

    “Yes sir, that’s right. Five dollars. And please watch your language, there is a child seated next to you. If this will be a problem I could have you seated elsewhere.”

    “No, I’m sorry. Um forget the headsets.” 

    Somewhere over the flyover zone of America, (actually it was Texas) the turbulence started to increase and the tension in Pradeep’s bladder had slowly been rising all day. He had to take a leak, and if he didn’t take a leak NOW he’d probably piss his pants. For the first time in his life, Pradeep had the courage to ask the drunk guy next to him to please stand up I have to go to the bathroom. Not surprisingly, the guy was fast asleep. Pradeep asked him again, but he was out cold from his little binge. Pradeep turned to his left for support. The kid was still sniffling, and the mother looked pretty irate. Pradeep asked her in his most timid, kindest voice if she would please get up he had to go to the bathroom. She said something like “can’t you see I have a child here? Could you go the other way?” Amazingly, Pradeep stood up for his rights. He simply said “NO.” He said it again. “No means no, woman. Now will you please get up or do I have to piss my pants right here and now?”

 

    That’s all it took. Grudgingly, slowly, yet bitterly the lady got up and moved her little child with her. As Pradeep rushed to the bathroom the Please Fasten Seatbelts lights were flashing, children were screaming, the orange juice from the food trays was spilling over onto the floor and the turbulence was turbulent. He finally made it to Restroom 3 and the queue was four persons long, every toilet. The red lights were clearly on – No Vacancy. Another twenty minutes passed before his turn arrived. Some smelly looking moustached man in a nice suit exited Restroom 3. He had a sick smile on his face, as if he had strangled a small animal in there. Pradeep was unnerved by the queer look on this guy’s face. As he entered Restroom 3, he almost passed out from disgust. The toilet was clearly clogged, and practically overflowing. “How the fuck do you clog a toilet on a fucking airline?!” was all Pradeep could say. No matter, he was up to bat, just like in the 3^rd grade when he struck out against the La Mirada Chargers when the bases were loaded and it was the ninth inning, or whatever the baseball situation was at the time. He remembered how the 39 year old coach gave him the worst guilt trip and said something like “son, baseball just isn’t for everyone” or some equivalent phrase. Pradeep remembered his strong desire to kick his coach in the balls but he never mustered the courage and mumbled, “yea you’re right coach. I guess baseball just isn’t for me.” He remembered how his coach would always make him play left field. “What a prick,” Pradeep thought. 

    He exited Restroom 3 and some little boy came in after him. This kid looked like he was from the elementary school in Mission Nuevo, the one right by Pradeep’s work; the school where every kid wore exclusively Hurley clothes and Etnies shoes. After about ten seconds the young boy ran out screaming and pointing at him, as if it was his shit that was responsible for the backup. Some older looking inquisitive Dick Tracy type guy in a sport coat stuck his head in Restroom 3 and looked again at Pradeep, as if he’d just done something heinous. Pradeep thought about what kind of moron sticks his head into a destroyed bathroom for kicks. Pradeep calmly tried to sit back down in his seat, asking the lady and her kid to move over again, just as politely as before. Everyone on the airplane was pointing at him and whispering. The turbulence was getting worse. The little kids started crying again, and a coke spilled on the floor. The movie was boring; people were stretching their legs all over the place and the baby next to him as if on cue barfed directly on his shoe. The limit for Pradeep was when a team of airhostess and even an airhost calmly walked up to him and asked him to “please clean up the mess he made in Restroom 3.” Fuck that. He wasn’t cleaning up anything. This was bullshit; they had no right to assume that he’s the sick bastard who annihilated that restroom. He was fuming at this point, and he simply couldn’t take the stress of flying any longer.  

    What his reasoning was, he didn’t know, he rolled up his cuffs, tightened his belt, and walked back to where the little Hurley kid was still screaming and pointing at him. Seeing red, he grabbed the kid by his shirt collar and dragged him into Restroom 3, while the little child was kicking and screaming. A young vigilante tried to stop Pradeep by grabbing his arm, but it was of no use. The flight had pissed Pradeep off enough that he vented his frustration on the fated young boy.  

    At this point, the turbulence was so intense that no one could even stand up, let alone stop Pradeep from completing his mission - to flush this little kid down the toilet. The boy’s head and some of his Billabong T-shirt went inside the commode, but alas - he was far too large to flush and even if he had been small enough, the toilet was still clogged from actual perpetrator who was stealthily sipping his Scotch and Soda somewhere in the front of the aircraft, pretending that nothing happened. Pradeep doesn’t remember much of this, but several of the airhosts took an axe from the emergency supply kit and broke down the door. The boy’s father was visibly upset, and he broke through the barricade of airhosts and hit Pradeep several times in the face, knocking him out. The child was still screaming and crying, and a tear fell out of the father’s eyes as he held his son. Unconscious and bruised, Pradeep was dragged into the holding cabin by several of the airhosts. 

    Some time later, Pradeep woke up with two black eyes. The entire airline smelled of shit. He felt like someone had smashed a brick into his forehead. He had a pounding headache, and his entire body was sore. He knew he’d get arrested and thrown in jail, but the truth is he really didn’t give a damn. He knew he’d vented on the easiest target available at the time, and he knew he was just another bully, but he was happy. He had a smile on his face because he was no longer afraid of flying.