Standing By

Airline Regulations

(Scott)

"Nooo, Mitch, that doesn't resemble a spider!" I cackled, squinting an eye at my drawing and trying to figure out how he saw a spider. If anything, it looked more like cottage cheese. Definitely not like the buffalo like I was going for. Maybe art was not my strong point here...

"Yes it does!" he argued, picking up the paper and jabbing at the paper with the pen he'd just plucked right out of my hand. "See, here's the body... here's the head... and here's eight legs!"

"That's four legs," Kirstie corrected him. "See, one, two, three... four." She pointed to each leg for him. "It's clearly a sheep."

"No, not a sheep either," I laughed, grabbing the pen back and working on elongating the tail.

"I see eight legs!" Mitch protested, repossessing the pen. "Now look! One, two, three, four, five, six—"

"That's the sheep's horn's, Mitch," Kirstie tried to tell him.

"Kirstie, I told you, it's not a sheep either," I reminded her patiently. I took a breath and blew on the paper, sending Kirstie's eyelash out of the way.

"Oh." Mitch giggled. "OK, now I just see seven legs."

I brushed a pretzel crumb off the paper with the side of my hand.

"OK, six legs," he corrected himself.

"I dunno where you're getting six," I complained, placing the pen on each leg in turn. "One, two, three, four. These over here..." I moved the pen in a circle just above the horns. "...are not legs."

"Lemme see that again." Mitch picked the paper up and pulled it close to his face. "Well, frankly, they do look like legs, but if you're so adamant about it, fine, I'll go with it."

"Put it back down," Kirstie complained. "I can't see it up by your face."

He placed it primly back in front of me and placed it on my tray table, patting a curled-up edge down. "There."

Kirstie's head immediately fell over my attempted artistry. "Poodle?"

"Nooo," I groaned. "Poodles have cute ears. There are no cute ears on this!" I spent a minute trying to uglify the buffalo's ears. Both of them leaned over to get a look.

"Owww!" Kirstie yelped suddenly, sitting straight up and rubbing at her elbow. All three of our heads swung towards the aisle where two flight attendants had just come running through paying zero attention to where passengers' body parts were.

"Hey!" I snapped at them.

They didn't even look back at us, putting their heads together with the attendant up in our area. Our attendant's eyes popped wide open, whispering quickly with the others.

"Wonder what's going on," Mitch mused, gazing at them.

"Don't matter. It doesn't give anyone the right to be rude," Kirstie grumbled, still rubbing at her elbow.

"Well, no," I agreed, still watching them. There was a sense of urgency to their whispering and glancing around nervously. "They're acting like something's amiss."

"Amiss?" Mitch teased. "Amiss, amiss, amiss."

I gave him a look. "Well, it does."

"The ride is smooth and conversation is at a normal level," Kirstie analyzed. "Things are just fine."

"Then why is the brunette going into the cockpit area?" I reasoned, eyes never leaving the attendants. My Spidey senses were tingling. Pretty sure attendants don't normally go up to talk to the pilot.