space teeeeevs! spa-a-a-ace teeeves
3/16/2009
I flew in to IAH from HNL--I was flying to Cape Canaveral (I'm an astronaut, or going to watch the launch of some rovers I'm working on--very possibly both) with a brunette female colleague and our connection, conveniently, was in Houston. After meeting with some astronauts (mostly blond, military-looking men with brown leather flight jackets--one in particular, I thought to myself, looked just like Lt. Mike Birchwood from UCB) at a diner near the airport, we checked in and boarded. It was one of those flights where you walk out to the tarmac and get on a rolling staircase, and I did not like the look of the plane one bit: the fuselage was skinny as hell, with an aspect ratio of like 1:15, and the paint job (current Southwest colors, but with an odd retro typeface for the words) was flaking off all over the place.
I sucked it up and boarded anyway. The plane was pretty much empty except for me, my colleague, and the astronauts; there were a few firefighters and maybe one or two other people with us in coach. Business and first class were empty. Why the hell they couldn't have put us in a smaller plane, then, I did not know. I sat and fumed as the plane took off.
I was surprised by how smooth the ride was. I looked out the window at one point and noticed that we were climbing rather steeply, but it didn't feel dangerous/scary like it does on some large planes.
"Hey, is that the LON light?" the Mike-Birchwood astronaut asked the dark-haired one, referring to the cockpit light indicating a long-term emergency (as opposed to SHO for short-term ones).
"Yeah, I think so!" he replied. "Huh."
I had no idea how they could see the cockpit lights from where we were sitting, but before I had time to ask the plane banked hard, then took a sickening drop. We were crashing.
And before I had time to come to terms with that, the air next to me turned a shimmery gold, and Captain James Tiberius Kirk was standing next to me on the plane. The next thing I knew we were back in the Houston airport.
"We had to get you out," said Kirk, implying that the Enterprise was on some silly-ass save-historical-figure-time-travel mission, and the historical figure was me.
"That's great," I said, "but what about everyone else on the plane?"
He started waxing poetic about a primitive form of the Prime Directive. I tuned him out and started walking towards the gate to Florida, wishing he'd just had us beamed there instead.
We both boarded the next flight out, which was much nicer: small, new, and in good working order. I was about to fall asleep when sirens and red warning lights all over the cabin went off. We were stalling again. I wondered aloud if maybe I had to die and planes would just keep crashing no matter how many times they transported me off of them. Capt. Kirk yelled at me to go fly the plane while he fixed something in the back (the pilots had evidently disappeared).
"AND KEEP IT ABOUT 20 FEET OFF THE GROUND!" he added.
I was good enough of a pilot to believe it was worth a shot. I did as directed, and shockingly, it worked--but it was the most hellish experience of my life trying to keep the thing from hitting traffic lights, telephone poles, etc. I put it down in an empty expanse of cracked cement near the Orlando airport. Capt. Kirk and I were the last to disembark.
"Did you notice that all the classes above coach were empty?" he asked.
"Yes, actually," I said, "though you could hardly call the section on that second flight--"
"You need to learn to follow the money." he said.
--
Sixty or so years later we're sitting on deck chairs in a Florida retirement community. A woman, either a community employee or one of our personal assistants/secretaries, approaches us with a sympathy card for Coretta Scott King.* He takes it first and signs it; as he does so, he says it out loud: "Mr. and Mrs. James T. Kirk." I am annoyed but used to it by now; he's always pulling that kind of thing. I wish the future weren't so much like the 1960's.
--
*It's hard to tell whether it's an anniversary-of-death sympathy card, which seems rather tactless, or if another time-travel mission prevented the assassination in the first place and he's only just recently deceased. In either case, it's also not clear how either of them is still around in my old age.
I flew in to IAH from HNL--I was flying to Cape Canaveral (I'm an astronaut, or going to watch the launch of some rovers I'm working on--very possibly both) with a brunette female colleague and our connection, conveniently, was in Houston. After meeting with some astronauts (mostly blond, military-looking men with brown leather flight jackets--one in particular, I thought to myself, looked just like Lt. Mike Birchwood from UCB) at a diner near the airport, we checked in and boarded. It was one of those flights where you walk out to the tarmac and get on a rolling staircase, and I did not like the look of the plane one bit: the fuselage was skinny as hell, with an aspect ratio of like 1:15, and the paint job (current Southwest colors, but with an odd retro typeface for the words) was flaking off all over the place.
I sucked it up and boarded anyway. The plane was pretty much empty except for me, my colleague, and the astronauts; there were a few firefighters and maybe one or two other people with us in coach. Business and first class were empty. Why the hell they couldn't have put us in a smaller plane, then, I did not know. I sat and fumed as the plane took off.
I was surprised by how smooth the ride was. I looked out the window at one point and noticed that we were climbing rather steeply, but it didn't feel dangerous/scary like it does on some large planes.
"Hey, is that the LON light?" the Mike-Birchwood astronaut asked the dark-haired one, referring to the cockpit light indicating a long-term emergency (as opposed to SHO for short-term ones).
"Yeah, I think so!" he replied. "Huh."
I had no idea how they could see the cockpit lights from where we were sitting, but before I had time to ask the plane banked hard, then took a sickening drop. We were crashing.
And before I had time to come to terms with that, the air next to me turned a shimmery gold, and Captain James Tiberius Kirk was standing next to me on the plane. The next thing I knew we were back in the Houston airport.
"We had to get you out," said Kirk, implying that the Enterprise was on some silly-ass save-historical-figure-time-travel mission, and the historical figure was me.
"That's great," I said, "but what about everyone else on the plane?"
He started waxing poetic about a primitive form of the Prime Directive. I tuned him out and started walking towards the gate to Florida, wishing he'd just had us beamed there instead.
We both boarded the next flight out, which was much nicer: small, new, and in good working order. I was about to fall asleep when sirens and red warning lights all over the cabin went off. We were stalling again. I wondered aloud if maybe I had to die and planes would just keep crashing no matter how many times they transported me off of them. Capt. Kirk yelled at me to go fly the plane while he fixed something in the back (the pilots had evidently disappeared).
"AND KEEP IT ABOUT 20 FEET OFF THE GROUND!" he added.
I was good enough of a pilot to believe it was worth a shot. I did as directed, and shockingly, it worked--but it was the most hellish experience of my life trying to keep the thing from hitting traffic lights, telephone poles, etc. I put it down in an empty expanse of cracked cement near the Orlando airport. Capt. Kirk and I were the last to disembark.
"Did you notice that all the classes above coach were empty?" he asked.
"Yes, actually," I said, "though you could hardly call the section on that second flight--"
"You need to learn to follow the money." he said.
--
Sixty or so years later we're sitting on deck chairs in a Florida retirement community. A woman, either a community employee or one of our personal assistants/secretaries, approaches us with a sympathy card for Coretta Scott King.* He takes it first and signs it; as he does so, he says it out loud: "Mr. and Mrs. James T. Kirk." I am annoyed but used to it by now; he's always pulling that kind of thing. I wish the future weren't so much like the 1960's.
--
*It's hard to tell whether it's an anniversary-of-death sympathy card, which seems rather tactless, or if another time-travel mission prevented the assassination in the first place and he's only just recently deceased. In either case, it's also not clear how either of them is still around in my old age.
Labels: 1960s, beach, celebrities, commitment, death, disaster, Florida, space travel, Star Trek, television, time travel, travel
posted by Kat at 7:33 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home