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by Rick Walton
The last time I went to Venezuela I flew on an American carrier, West American World Airways (WAWA). When I bought my ticket, I asked for the non-smoking section.
"The whole plane is non-smoking," said the clerk. "New federal law. Went into effect last week."
"Then how about a seat by the window?" I asked.
"That I can do," said the clerk. "Is over the wing okay? That's all I have left."
"That's fine," I said, and I took my ticket and boarded the plane.
"Welcome to WAWA's Flight 369.2," said the stewardess. "If your seatbelts are working, please keep them fastened until after takeoff. Our inflight movie will be 'Die Hard II'. In an hour I'll be serving dinner. You will have a choice of Big Macs or cold pizza. In case of emergency, don't worry, there's nothing you can do. Oh, and by the way, this is a non-smoking flight. If you find you need to smoke or you'll puke in the aisles, please come to me and I'll direct you to our convenient smokers lounge."
I wondered how they could have a smoker's lounge on a non- smoking flight, but as long as I didn't have to smell the smoke, I didn't care what they did.
The movie would have been interesting, except my headphones didn't work. So instead, I read a fascinating article about Linguini Addicts in the WAWA Times Magazine. Then it was time for dinner. I chose the cold pizza.
As the passengers were finishing eating, I noticed that some of them were looking mighty uncomfortable. I was hoping they'd had the Big Macs. They gasped and grabbed at their throats, and coughed until they began to gag. Their eyes opened wide into wild, nervous looks. I was about to stand and ask if there was a doctor in the house, when one of them, a tall man with a beard, rose and rushed up to the stewardess. He whispered something in her ear. She smiled and led him to a door two rows in front of me.
From under the seats she pulled a rope. On each end were hooks. One of the hooks she fastened to a loop by the door, and the other she wrapped around the tall man's belt.
Then she shouted, "Hold onto your seats and your children, everyone," and she opened the door and shoved the man out.
Papers and small personal items flew about as the air pressure in the cabin plummeted. The stewardess struggled with the door, but was finally able to get it shut.
I looked out the window. The tall man, flapping at the end of the rope, pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his back pocket, and very carefully removed one cigarette from the pack. As he raised the cigarette to his lips, the wind whipped the pack out of his hand. He gripped the remaining cigarette tighter.
Then from a front pocket he pulled his lighter. He tried several times to get a flame, and then discovered that the only way to do so was to wrap himself around the lighter, using his body to block the wind.
When he unwrapped himself, he kept his hands cupped around the lit cigarette in his mouth. As he whipped at the end of the rope, and as the wind battered his body, he slowly savored each puff.
"Beg pardon," shouted the stewardess, "but hold onto your barf bags!" I hadn't noticed the two other men and the woman who had been led to the door by the stewardess. The door was jerked open, and out flew the smokers.
"You ought to put some hand holds and some wind breaks on the wing," I suggested to the stewardess as I watched the four smokers bash into each other.
"Good idea," said the stewardess. "We've only been doing this for a week, and we're still working out the bugs."
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