I want to share with my readers an article that was published in The New York Times by Roger Cohen on April 15, 2009. This article is a wonderful display of humor coupled with morality, irony, and reminder to most of us how we have lost common sense, humanity and respect for basic human dignity.
A man who says he desperately needed to use an airplane bathroom after eating something bad in Honduras faces a felony charge after being accused of twisting a flight attendant’s arm to get to the lavatory, the F.B.I. said.
A man who says he desperately needed to use an airplane bathroom after eating something bad in Honduras faces a felony charge after being accused of twisting a flight attendant’s arm to get to the lavatory, the F.B.I. said.
Joao Correa, 43, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution he had a bathroom emergency 30 minutes into a March 28 Delta Air Lines flight from San Pedro Sula to Atlanta but found the single coach aisle on the Boeing 737 blocked by a beverage cart. He said he asked whether he could use the lavatory in business class but was told no.
When the cart wasn’t moved after a few minutes, Mr. Correa said, he ran for the business-class lavatory. He said the flight attendant put up her arm to block him and he grabbed it to keep his balance.
Well.
I should begin by saying I’ve never been to San Pedro Sula so I don’t know how bad the bad food there is. I’m sure Honduran cuisine — no oxymoron intended — is generally great, even though nobody has ever suggested to me: “Hey, how about Honduran tonight?”
Sure, you might get unlucky with a mondongo (intestine) soup — or notice teensy-weensy creatures doing the breaststroke in your water — but I for one refuse to knock Honduran cooking or suggest it’s bigger on bulk than finesse.
Still, I think you have to accord great respect to a “bathroom emergency,” especially in a middle-aged gentleman.
Imagine poor Correa, assailed by disquieting visions of the mountain of fried fish with jalapeños he’d vacuumed down at the Bistro San Pedro Sula Del Mar, and then — the horror! The horror! — spotting the beverage cart (formerly the food cart) blocking his path to relief.
Uh-oh.
I can hear the snippy reply from the flight attendants, mostly middle-aged themselves, all of whom think the fun of flying disappeared some decades back — about the same time as their job security and sense of humor — and would rather be sipping mojitos in Sanibel than talking up seven-dollar “wraps.”
“You’ll have to wait, Sir. We’re doing the drinks and tiny pack of peanuts service.”
The intonation of that “Sir” will be familiar to many of you, a tone peculiar to American airline companies, one in which resentment, superiority, fear, contempt and impatience are coiled into a venomous parody of politeness — a three-letter expletive really — that stands the notion of service on its head and tells the whole dismal story of U.S. carriers in recent years.
“But I have a bathroom...”
“Sir. Please return to your seat.”
Correa, the jalapeños now fully fired up in his bowels, rues the fact he gave up the high-jump in middle school. He does a quick mental reconnoiter of the plastic bag of toiletries he brought on board: no Diarrex there. He considers some metaphorical “arm-twisting” — like paying $50 for a “wrap” and saying, “Keep the change!”
Not a great idea, he determines, good sense intact even over the clutching of his sphincter, before turning to see the aisle — empty as the coffers at Lehman — stretching away toward the flimsy curtain separating the Business Class section.
Come on, he thinks, that’s over: that whole master-of-the-universe, platinum-card, us-and-them, starter-mansion, you-line-up-over-there game. With five million lost U.S. jobs in a year, that’s history. He needs a lavatory pronto but there’s a cartload of stubborn pique standing between him and a rightful salvation.
“May I use the business section lavatory...”
“Sir.”
Correa snaps. If he can’t high-jump, he can do the mile-high, eight-yard dash. As he accelerates past 8.5 miles an hour — his usual pace on the treadmill — he glimpses a blur of a downy, female arm flung out to block him. Veering left, he stumbles on a protruding Louis Vuitton dog bag (prompting the yelp of a drugged terrier), and grabs the arm.
“SIR!”
“Hasta la vista, Baby!”
With a non-metaphorical arm twist, Correa’s gone. Nothing can stop him now. More than his legs are in a running state. He powers through the curtain, past the slumbering fat cats, to his business-class catharsis.
After which Uncle Sam’s humorless reckoning begins.
Far from a felony charge — a felony charge! — Correa should be honored for his initiative. We’re not going to get out of a crisis into which we were led, sheep-like, without thinking for ourselves. We’re not going to get out of this crisis without realizing we’re all in this together.
We’re not going to get out of this crisis with petty regulations standing in the way of common sense and solidarity. We’re not going to get out of this crisis with post-9/11 fear governing our actions rather than some more generous humanity. We’re not going to get out of this crisis without being grown-ups.
Clear the ex-food carts, Delta. And America, clear Correa now.
Vikram
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