The man wore a camo shirt with a scripture reference on the front and a MAGA baseball cap. He approached our row, stopped in front of me, and stated in a very loud, Southern drawl, “PRAISE THE LORD!”
This did not bode well for our flight.
He scooted to the window seat and landed with loud halleluiahs and praise Jesuses, while his buddy, a 300-pound fellow-camo-hat-wearing Southerner shoved his way into the row directly in front of us, nearly breaking the seatbacks as he leaned into them for support. The two jawed back and forth at a volume that clearly revealed their mothers never taught them about “inside voices”.
After all the passengers boarded and the cabin door closed, our captain announced over the speakers, “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard this flight from Orlando to Charlotte. Our flight time is one hour and fifteen minutes from wheels up to wheels down.”
The pair of men exclaimed amazement at this feat of science, physics, and engineering. Actually, what they said was, “Boy, Howdy! Whew wee! Now that’s fast!”
The man in row 19 questioned, “How is that possible?”
The man in row 20 quickly answered, “It’s the time change.”
The man in row 19 was relieved, “Oh, that makes sense.”
Silence for a beat.
“Wait a minute. Even with the time change, time in the air is the same.”
“Oh, right.” There was a pause while Row 20 Holy Camo Man’s mental hamster turned the wheel of thought. “It’s the tailwind! It will be slower coming back.”
In the words of Forest Gump, “Now, I’m not a smart man,” but it is my understanding that there is not now, nor since the invention of the train, has there been a time difference between Orlando and Charlotte. If you also consider that trade winds typically blow from West to East, and not South to North, the likelihood of this flight experiencing any kind of tailwind was also highly unlikely.
I wanted to offer alternative solutions to this dilemma, but wisdom told me to keep my mouth shut. However, it doesn’t stop me from sharing my thoughts here. Does it?
For instance, I could have shared that the time in the air was so short because:
-
- The pilot is a witch who just finished training at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter and has successfully put a spell on the plane. He also used the confundo spell on the Muggles, you included, making you completely unaware of our true speed.
- At 35,000 feet, the air is so thin that we become weightless. This makes the plane faster than time.
- American Airlines found a way to time-travel. It’s one of the reasons this flight costs $100 more than any other. That kind of technology is not cheap.
- As soon as I saw your shirt, I prayed that the flight would go quickly. It’s a God-thing.
- That announcement was for the people in first class. Our flight time in coach is 2 hours and 34 minutes.
- It’s a math problem, where a plane flying from Orlando encounters a convergence of factors best articulated in the simple formula: X=y/a+(13.47-jbe) x 8πα. (Laughing like we all get the joke)…Am I right?
I would love to report on the entire one-hour and fifteen minutes of flight time because there was plenty of good material; however, I’ll end with one last question raised from Row 19 Holy Camo Man when we touched down in Charlotte. While looking carefully at his watch he yelled back to his buddy, “So, what time is it here?”
