NIGHT OF TERROR ABOARD DOOMED AIRCRAFT!!!!!!

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

NIGHT OF TERROR ABOARD
DOOMED AIRCRAFT!!!!!!!!!!!
(Or something like that)

No, this is not a story about Air Canada flight attendants. If it were, “sneering disdain” and “snarling ill manners” would be added to the title.

Last week a Famous Name Brand airplane en route from Chicago to London made one of those famous unscheduled stops in Gander, Newfoundland because of an undisclosed malfunction. The desperate selfies / mefies / tweeties of the surviving passengers lead the free world to conclude that this was a Jade Helm kidnapping of Americans by unmarked invisible NATO / UN ninjas armed with deadly pictures of Miley Jenner twerking.

The Jade Helm operatives and their unmarked, green-powered nuclear tanks had been lurking in ambush in a series of abandoned Tim Horton’s restaurants across the frozen lunar landscape that is Newfoundland, home only to reindeer and venomous snow snakes. Eh.

Upon landing the passengers were brutally yanked out of the aircraft by knuckle-dragging OGPU agents and then flogged into icy barracks to be starved and humiliated. Such brutal maltreatment has not been inflicted on suffering people since the last of Uncle Joe Stalin’s merry gulags was shut down in the 1960s.

If any of this can be proven, the American Transportation Security Agency will have something to say about it because humiliating airline passengers is their job. As for depriving airline passengers of food, that’s Air Canada’s job.

The only comfort that can be offered to the friends and relatives of the prisoners of Jade Helm is that there is no evidence that they were forced to drink Screech rum.

The passengers were housed – possibly chained - overnight in (gasp!) barracks built by the United States Air Force. The beds were said to be uncomfortable (eeeeek!), and the inmates were given only two blankets each (oh, the humanity!).

Beyond the barbed wire the prisoners could see demented I’s d’ B’ys beating spotted owls to death with cricket bats. In Newfoundland, you see, this is their idea of a night out at Hooter’s. (Oh, I am so not going to be asked back to Newfoundland…)

As the prison barracks began to sink beneath the dark, barren wastes of bleak, icy, frozen, Godforsaken Newfoundland, the brave young men gave their blankies to women and children, and everyone held hands and sang “Nearer, my God to Thee” as Kommandant Klink accompanied them on the violin. Or maybe it was something about Gilligan’s Island – “…the Minnow would be lost…the Minnow would be lost…”

One news report said that the air crew were billeted in a hotel in Newfoundland and Labrador. This would require a demonstration of bi-location since Newfoundland is an island and Labrador is part of the Canadian mainland. The Canadian federal government, which at times can be as unclear about reality as the U.S. federal government, forced a marriage of hyphenation so that Newfoundland (which is an island about the size of Ireland) and Labrador (which is not) are on the map as one province. This is no more logical than declaring Texas and Florida to be one state.

The passengers were jealous that The Captain and Gilligan and all the rest of the flight crew got to sleep in a hotel instead of a genuine United States Air Force barracks. Yeah, and the captain and the co-pilot get to sit up front in the airplane all the time – what’s up with that, hah?

The logical passenger wants to the pilot to be well-rested, well-fed, and content with life. Passengers should be able to sit in on a job interview with the flight deck crew before every flight: “Did you get plenty of sleep last night? So how’s your personal life? Meet anyone nice lately? What are your plans for the future? Have you ever flown for Lufthansa? Were you ever a flight attendant for Air Canada?”

Two realities obtain: the first one is that whiny people whine on the whiny MeFaceSpaceBook thingies about everything. If you were to give them a new Mercedes-Benz they’d belly-ache about the paint job.

The second reality is that Newfoundland is one of the most beautiful islands on the planet. The people of Newfoundland are unquestionably the nicest group of folks anywhere, generous and hospitable, and still fond of us Yanks. Any Tim Horton’s has the best road coffee along the Trans-Can, not everyone in Newfoundland ends every sentence with “eh,” they’ve got icebergs and whales and mountains and camping and boat tours and cruise ships and universities and shopping malls and hunting and those really stupid mooses and the railway trail for walking and Gros Morne National Park and fresh fish, fish, fish and puffins (please don’t eat the puffins) and the site of Lord Baltimore’s first colony and history and culture and music and art and a ‘way-cool provincial flag.

Newfoundland does not have any snakes, mosquitoes, or stinging insects, thus proving it is not Texas.

If on a map you draw a line from Houston to London you’ll find that Newfoundland is on the way but most folks don’t think of visiting there, and that is a shame. You can look up Newfoundland at www.newfoundlandandlabrador.com.

Stuck for a day or two in Newfoundland? We should all be so lucky.

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