Welcome Aboard, Please Kill Me

Wednesday, February 5, 2014 |

by Chang Lili

Chang Lili is a stewardess on Hainan Airlines.

Good morning, sir, and welcome aboard our Hainan Airlines flight from Bangkok to Beijing. I say “good morning,” even though it’s actually the middle of the bloody night and I’m steeling myself for five hours in one of these overcrowded pig trucks my bosses call an aircraft.

Just kill me now.

Anyway, please take your seat, though may I suggest you first spend 35 minutes rummaging around in the overhead storage compartment while a restless queue forms behind you. Yes, take your passport out and hold it in your hand. If our overworked and underpaid pilots do crash this subsonic tin box into the Himalayan foothills, your precious belongings are far less likely to be vaporized than your corpulent frame. In fact, that ID, fused to your flesh with the searing heat of a jet fuel explosion, might well help investigators to identify you. That, or your atrocious dental work.

Not like you care, but I just flew here from Beijing this evening. I’ve been in Thailand for three hours. Do you know how I spent that time? No, I didn’t check out the Grand Palace or take a long-tail boat up the Chao Praya River. Instead, I spent the time vacuuming sunflower seed shells from the cracks between the seats and scrubbing gobs of phlegm off the frayed carpeting.

God, you people are disgusting.

Oh, I see you brought your cantankerous father onto the flight. That’s swell. It’ll be wonderful having to repeatedly wrestle cheap cigarettes out of his trembling fingers, or shoulder-barging the bathroom door after he tries to make instant noodles in the basin.

And this must be your mother. No, of course, it’d have been cruel to ask her to not bring her bag full of lithium batteries, medicinal oils and blasting caps onto the aircraft. Those people at security were horribly insensitive. I’ll be sure to smile wanly every time she refers to me as “girl” and demands more blankets because she chose to dress like a Patpong streetwalker.

As I was saying, nearest exit may be—oh, to hell with it. You’ll know where it is once the cabin decompresses midair and you’re being sucked out of it. In fact, I pray this plane smashes right into the ground after takeoff. It’d save me five hours of cleaning up after your gelatinous ass.

Well, it looks like we’ve finished taxiing. Please make sure all your mobile devices are switched off, your seat belts are securely fastened and enjoy your fucking flight.