Let’s just say the menu isn’t quite the Neil Perry concoctions I am used to on Qantas, and the flogged Aero Mexico blankets hardly made up for the lack of English-friendly entertainment. Sure, it is perhaps the only airline in the world that sells one-way flights at exactly half the cost, but that’s probably a masked warning that one should not plan more than a single trip with them, ever. Throw in an unlisted stop in Auckland, a shaking overhead baggage hold and I am thinking that a name change might be order. Maybe Aerolineas Argen-stingy-arse or even Aero-bin-eas Argentinas might be more appropriate?
Having woken early with a slight wine head you could say that I was not perhaps in the ideal state for travelling (for what I thought would be) a non-stop 17 hour flight. With a sore head, and grumbling tummy I was somewhat prematurely overjoyed when a snack came trundling my way. Unfortunately the cheese and onion scroll that arrived decided to do its best impersonation of a pogo stick inside me, moving up and down from my stomach to my throat, with the occasional wave making it into my mouth. Its dance partner, a stodgy square of sticky Sara Lee-like cake, attempted to sway a little gentler than the cheese, but still rocked in crashing blows against my stomach walls. The fraying electric blue upholstered seats in front of me did little to settle me. I stared impatiently at the broken plastic underneath my tray table latch, and attempted to adjust my geriatric seat. This was going to be a long flight.
Fortunately, courtesy of an unknown break in New Zealand, I got the chance to guzzle a coke and strip away my inner pain. But returning once again to the scrunchie-wearing hostesses, the reprieve is only short-lived. Having waited well over half an hour for the green toilet light to go on, which I assumed, given the state of the rest of the plane, was due to poor engine efficiency and a consequent slow crawl to an appropriate altitude, I decided to take things into my own hands. Storming up to the first class, I caught the attendants ploughing through their meal, and appeared with such abruptness that their embarrassment granted me a privileged toilet pass. Which is when I realised that someone here definitely has a sense of humour.
Reaching for the comfort of a toilet seat cover, I laid its scratchy tissue-paper down to find the central ‘pissing’ hole cut out with a love heart. In a plane where only one of the three televisions are working, and it takes more than an hour for our dinner trays to be cleared, I had to smile. What the hell have I gotten myself into?
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