Take me away to LA!! (Even if it is only to transit)

I’m going with the “flying kangaroo”… As torturous as 14 hours non-stop in an aeroplane is, it’s still preferable to making a stop over. Maybe. It’s always a bit of a roll of the dice with Qantas. You could be flying the friendly skies or you could be flying Kath and Kim airways. I remember the last time I flew Qantas… It was to Hong Kong and it was my first (and so far only) time on the A380. My allocated seat number was 80. Now, never having been on an A380 before, seat number 80 sounds to me like it’s going to be way down the back of the plane. Of course, when I got on the plane, there was no-one to guide me to my seat and I figured I’d need to walk quite a long way before I would need to start looking at seat numbers. Little did I realise that they start numbering the seats from the front of the top deck, so “80” on the bottom deck is actually fairly close to the front. By the time I started looking at seat numbers, I had already walked past it. Oh em gee!! Then, suddenly Miss Flight Attendant asks what seat I’m looking for… When I tell her it’s “80”, she rolls her eyes, lets out the loudest and longest groan like it was the most idiotic thing anyone has ever done, points her finger toward the front of the aircraft and whines, “You’ve gone TOO FAR…It’s back THAT WAY!” Clearly (to her anyway) I shouldn’t be allowed on aircraft.

Today’s flight has been relatively good. It doesn’t feel too much like being trapped inside an episode of Kath and Kim…Except that they made a point of handing out menu cards at the beginning of the flight but then didn’t actually serve what was on the card. They then had to tell everyone individually what the choice was and we’re getting quite frustrated that people were asking for food that was on the menu.

But…

Qantas has never killed anyone! That’s what we proudly tell anyone who dares to bad-mouth the flag carrier of our nation… Or maybe that’s just me. Last year at the place where I was working, one of the employees was a Chinese woman… She was from Shanghai and her name began with an “E”. In order to protect her identity, I’ll just refer to her as “Ecstasy”. At that time, I was considering flying somewhere on China Eastern and so I asked Ecstasy what it was like. She recoiled in horror and gasped, “Oh my God it’s soooooo bad! Don’t fly with them… It’s EVEN WORSE than Qantas!” I’m sure it is worse than Qantas, I was just surprised that she used Qantas as the comparison and the way she put it. We all know Qantas is a bit rough… But hey, we can say it. Non-Australians can’t.

Incidentally, Ecstasy is the same person who shoved toilet paper in my face when one day I asked her if she knew where a guy called Pedro was. The boss had asked me to find his guy and send him to her office. I had never met him and had no idea what he looked like. So, I thought I’d just ask Ecstasy. “Hey Ecstasy, do you know where Pedro is?” … “Toilet paper? You want toilet paper? Here, toilet paper.” … “No, no, no, Pedro” … “Here, toilet paper.” I can’t remember how the conversation ended but I eventually found Pedro and managed to score some toilet paper in the process.