safety-demo

Airline Safety Demo
------- mpk 05/1999

Ladies and gentlemen, the cabin crew will now demonstrate some of the
safety features of this.. damn, what type is it.. Airbus A330 aircraft,
and we'd appreciate it if you would actually pay some attention this
time. Yes, I'm talking to you, 11C. Put the newspaper down, nobody
thinks you're clever. And you, 14F. Gazing vacantly out of the window
may be good for impressing your friends into thinking you're such a
jet-setter that you don't have to watch the demo, but I just know that
if anything goes wrong that you'll be the first to start bleating for
a repeat. And you, 17A. You know where the emergency exits are on a
330?  What type of lifejackets we've got and how to put them on?
Whether the oxygen masks are the type which require you to tug on the
hose to release the oxygen? Maybe you'd like to come up here in front
of the class, ah, cabin and do the demo yourself? Ah, good. So kind of
you to switch off your Walkman.

Your seatbelt is fastened and unfastened by pulling the handle up like
this. It is possible, especially as this flight is going to the US,
that the belt may not fit around you - extension belts are available.
Press your call button now and inform the cabin crew if you are such
a lardass.

There are four emergency exits - one at the front, two in the centre over
the wings, yes, the big sticky-out things, that's right, and one at the
rear of the aircraft. The moronic gobshites, er, passengers seated next
to the exits should check the instructions on how to operate them,
as in the event of disaster we don't want to waste time as you put
your glasses on, squint confusedly at the instructions, hold a conference 
with your neighbour on how it should be done, and prove yourself 
generally unable to follow a diagram that tells you to turn a handle and
push the door. No, don't try to open it now, or we'll be even later
than we are already and I'll have to come back there and administer
summary justice with a rolled up in-flight magazine.

A lifejacket is hopefully under your seat, unless the last passenger
decided they wanted a souvenir of their flight and slipped it into
their bag on the way off. Don't take them out now, as they're
impossible to get back into the containers. The cabin crew will now
demonstrate how to put them on, an act which appears, and indeed is,
childishly simple, but will no doubt prove fantastically befuddling to
some of the more beetle-browed passengers on board. Your jacket can be
inflated by pulling hard on the red handle. Do not inflate it inside
the aircraft, although to be honest I don't know why we bother telling
you that as it's obvious that half of you will anyway, even though it
will impede your movements.  If you still can't understand this now
that we've told you not to inflate your lifejacket inside the
aircraft, both in words of one syllable and in the useful pictograms
on the safety instruction card, then quite frankly you deserve to drown
anyway and the gene pool will be a better place without you. Each 
lifejacket has a light, and a whistle for attracting attention, so I
predict that in the event of you lot being dumped in the Irish Sea,
it will suddenly become a much quieter place as you all paddle round in
panicky little circles blowing those bloody whistles and whining
about missing your connecting flight.

In the event of a loss of cabin pressure, plastic masks will
automatically drop down from the panel above your head. At this point,
a quarter of the cabin will pull the masks over their noses and mouths
and continue to breathe normally, another quarter will gaze bemusedly
at it, wonder what this funny thing is and quietly asphyxiate, and the
rest will run around the cabin in a blind panic, convinced the end is
nigh, scream wildly, attempt to mount each other, and generally
asphyxiate noisily. 7C is an exception to this, as he seems to be
having interesting reactions to the sight of an airline stewardess
wearing a rubber mask and a lifejacket, and will therefore be rendered
catatonic if all 320 masks suddenly appear.

Please now ensure that all your cabin baggage, including all those
enormous makeup boxes, irritating wheeled suitcases, and suit carriers
which people for some reason need in the cabin, is stuffed into the
overhead lockers, taking due care to leave all your glass bottles full
of highly flammable spirits at the front, so that in the event of
disaster they add to the excitement by turning into Molotovs and
showering both broken glass and flaming Bells everywhere. Also ensure
that your tray table is stowed and your seat back is upright - yes,
21B, I know that you speak English as you're reading the Times, so put
the table and the laptop away and sit up properly. You can't be that
much of a hotshot businessman if you're in Economy, so don't try to
impress people.

Enjoy the flight, and now sit there and shut up and don't bother us
again until we're into the cruise, at which point we will discover
just how many of you want a vegetarian meal but didn't bother to 
book it in advance on the assumption that this airline is telepathic.

Mike "Cabin doors to Manuel" K.

-- 
Computer Science System Administrator, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland
       mike.knell@cs.tcd.ie -=- http://www.cs.tcd.ie/Mike.Knell/