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| Me first born on one end, the potentiates in the middle and moi on the other end, for The Sound Of Music. |
I have had an interesting end to 2022.
Ever since my initial captaincy skill test on 01 January 2021, my License Proficiency checks are always scheduled in December although my expiry is in January. Christmas celebrations hung in the balance to say nothing of New Year's Eve. Which is alright, being in an operational trade, this gets taken in stride. All it means is that year end requires the occasional sacrifice and the perennial juggling.
This time, my days off-roster fell neatly from 19 December to 28 December, with my LPC programmed from 27 to 29 December. Not half bad! There was no need to mourn the loss of a few days off as this meant I could travel early to Semenanjung Malaysia and Christmas would be with my little hobbit children.
All went well indeed, inclusive of the LPC, which being done in the simulator, is accepted as a generous serving of humble pie. In my experience, rare is the pilot who enjoys check rides in the simulator. The ones who do, are known as training captains and designated flight examiners. The rest of us, endure it.
After enduring my license renewal then, came the assuaging night with the kids in Istana Budaya attending The Sound Of Music concert. It was good, driving back home late at night, yakking garbage around the dining table in post mortem of the actors and singing. It gave me only two hours of sleep before my wake up time for my flight back to Kota Kinabalu. Ah, but for moments like this, we sacrifice sleep, which we can catch up on during the two hours plus in flight. And here is where it can all go belly up.
I was programmed for night MEDEVAC standby for 31 December. I booked an early morning flight, at cost because that's how airlines are at festives. Shuffling on board to my row, I find an elderly couple in the same row with the husband in my window seat. I stood there waiting for some courtesies. Instead the wife asks, "Oh this is your seat is it?"
That the question had to be asked was telling beyond measure. I answered "It's fine. Keep it."
I realised five minutes later that I had made the right decision. Seated behind the husbdand was his grandson. I'm sure you know the type: 9-ish years of age, with the international-school Yank accent not quite dominating the subsurface Oriental intonation. The kind who keeps insisting at the top of his voce "Mummy, can you buy this for me? Mummy!! What are you buying for me Mummmyyyyyy!!!!" Why oh why do airlines provide in flight retail? Mummy was no better. Everytime she got in or out of her seat behind mine, she'd pull down on my seat back like she was Tom Cruise scaling a desert cliff. Her brat then started thumping the back of his grandpa's seat to not much reprimand. Every time he had to be taken to the headroom, he'd stomp his way to the amenities and back.
No I am not done.
Then came the piece de resistance: the in flight meal. You will get the pun later. To get our paid for meals, we have to provide our boarding passes as where it would be indicated that we purchased a meal. I did as instructed, but realised as the trolley traveled aft, that I hadn't had my boarding pass returned. I pinged the flight attendant and asked for my boarding pass, the one I printed myself on an A4, which would be required at the arrivals immigration booths for my passport to be stamped.
There was much hemming and hawing as the flight attendants tried to hunt down my boarding pass. They couldn't locate it. Finally a desperate idea: one flight attendant asked the window-seat-hijacking husband for his boarding pass. The strip-type printed at the airport kiosks. He reached into his pocket and pulled out three items: his pass, his wife's and my folded A4. The flight attendant asked him "Is that a boarding pass?", pointing at the folded A4.
And he replied "No"!!!
I told the flight attendant to check the A4 for my name. Finding JEFFREY printed on it, she apologised to me in profusion. I told her that it's not her problem, but who takes something which he knows isn't his, keeps it without owning up and then when checked, denies everything?
It was interesting to watch two generations of inept parenthood in one cabin and what was bequeathed to the third. I could not fully fault the child. Happy New Year you lot. I mean it the way CeeLo Green sang Forget You.
And no, I didn't catch up on any sleep.
