I went out of town on business again and I have to say, I really missed you guys. And by you guys I mean the voices in my head that I’m talking to whenever I write. Well, except for the voice named Garth, he’s a real asshole sometimes.

I traveled to New York again and had the Best. Flight. Ever. It was made of awesome because there was this one lady who had managed to make it all the way to sixty years old without ever riding an airplane anywhere and she was making her first plane trip. Right next to me.

Yes, you’re thinking, “Lorca, you are such a pure soul with such a loving heart for people. I know you made this horrible experience just that much more tolerable for this poor woman.” And ordinarily you’d be right. But not in this case.

If the woman had been normal-level-of-scared I would have maybe talked her down off the ledge or kept her mind occupied for a while during the TWENTY MINUTE flight. Yes, twenty, as in less than half an hour.

But when I saw that she was wearing a life jacket in her seat even though the flight from Birmingham to Memphis doesn’t even fly over a good-sized puddle and when she started this obnoxious loud moaning even before the doors were shut, I decided she is someone who doesn’t need to fly ever again. So I helped her come to that decision by making the entire experience as scary as possible. For her.

How To Scare The Shit Out Of Weird People On An Airplane:

Step One: change your ring tone to a really awesome siren sound and play it over and over right up until the stewardess tells you that you have to shut the thing off so it doesn’t mess up the pilot’s controls and make the plane fall out of the sky.

Step Two: quickly download the movie Memphis Belle to your iPad so you can watch the WWII air battle scenes throughout the trip.

Step Three: repeatedly ask in a loud voice, “Did you feel that? Did anyone else feel that just now? THAT. That grindy-sounding bumpy feeling. You know, kind of like something fell off. Are we leaning to the left now? I think we’re leaning.”

I was ready to implement Steps Four through Eight, but then she got all Tourettesy-sounding and threw up in the seat pouch in front of her so I backed off for a while. Only a little while. Because how do you not mess with someone during landing? There are all kinds of awesome scary noises and bouncy things are happening.

I’m pleased to say that I have now done my part to further the railway travel industry or the Greyhound bus people because that woman won’t come anywhere near an airport ever again, and I mean not even if the donor heart her grandkid needs is arriving in a red cooler and she has to go pick it up. More importantly, innocent passengers like me can now fly without fear of being thrown up on or annoyed. Although Garth kind of deserves to be puked on once in a while.