Two notes on a passage to the Philippines.

Does that constitute a pun? Is it plagiarizing Forster? Whatever.



1. I can never help but be impressed by the general malaise that settles over an airplane's passengers when a baby begins to cry because of bad turbulence. Really, crying is the most natural response in Christendom when your little aluminum cylinder, at sea in hostile air pockets and suspended over the North Pacific, begins to rock and dip and- this is the worst part- creak. I like to think the uncomfortable silence is a collective moment of realization that we are a stuuuupid and unfit species for willingly putting ourselves into this flying Orient-bound deathtrap.

2. Foreigners on airplanes smell really, really bad and love sitting next to me.