Smedley Flies the Green Skies Part II
Last week, Chester Smedley, the cranky geezer from Milkweed Lane in the Bay, while aboard Sardine Airlines’ 396 passenger bi-plane Aeroflot heading towards Las Vegas, a stopping point before reaching his destination Needles, CA., was causing more trouble than did the scary terrorist a few years ago who had a bomb tucked in his underwear while aboard a flight coming into the U.S. from Holland.
The story: shortly after takeoff, Smedley, in the lavatory at he rear of the airplane, while patiently standing as he was relieving himself, dropped his new pair of $500 bifocals into the toilet bowl. Smedley was not about to see his expensive eyeglasses go into the airplane’s sanitation tanks, so he reached as far as he could into the metallic toilet bowl, but in doing so, he wedged his arm and shoulder so deep that an enormous suction force possessed him. Smedley was petrified that he was going to be sucked head over heels into the bluish swirling waters of the below deck sanitation tank!
Blaring horns and flashing red lights alerted the crew to a serious, but unknown problem in the rear lavatory. The pilot popped out of the cockpit and rushed to the rear where it was apparent that someone was entombed in the cramped lavatory but worse, that this person was in danger of being sucked into the below deck sanitation tank. The quick thinking pilot shut off the power to the lavatory, releasing Smedley from the toilet’s air-tight grip. Using a special tool the crew was able pry open the lavatory door and out fell Smedley, pants still unzipped, but thankfully, not “wet”.
Was Smedley grateful for being rescued by the fast-acting captain and his crew? No way, but rather, Smedley wanted to know if the airline was going to reimburse him for his eyeglasses now at the bottom of the airplane’s sanitation tank!
Soon after the passengers finished clapping for the crew and consoling Smedley with kind words, it wasn’t long before they realized that Smedley’ lavatory caper had caused the rear lavatory to be out of service for the remainder of the four hours left on this flight, necessitating a lengthy and uncomfortable wait for the passengers to access the only other lavatory in the front of the airplane. And because Smedley still had to make a bathroom visit at least once an hour, and coming from the very rear of the airplane, this gave all the other 395 passengers several opportunities to unload their displeasure on the hapless Smedley. As a matter of fact, Smedley received a total of 1,580 dirty looks (four trips times 395 other passengers), setting a new Guiness record for dirty looks over a four hour period.
The remainder of the Sardine Airline Flight 2067 non-stop Little Rock to Las Vegas was uneventful and 395 partially relieved passengers upon landing all headed to the hotels and gambling tables that filled this dessert paradise. All but Smedley, however, as he had one last leg on his journey to Needles, CA. A ground agent of Sardine Airlines snagged Smedley as he was the last one off the airplane and put him with his gym bag into a luggage hauler and drove off to the outer perimeter of the airfield pulling up to a shack bearing a sign, “Dewey’s Crop Dusting Service.” Here, Dewey helped Smedley into the open cockpit front seat of the bi-wing duster and off they went heading for Needles which was about fifty miles away as the crow flies.
Upon landing at “Needles Crop Dusting” runway, Dewey helped Smedley out of the two seater, handed him an envelope, and then he took off immediately, leaving Smedley looking about for someone who could take him to the local funeral home to attend the service for his deceased mother’s second cousin, Klaude Klapper, who passed recently. Smedley noticed a large buffalo-looking man emerging from a beatup rusty pickup parked behind the Needles Crop Dusting Company office shack, making his way toward Smedley.
“Hi! I am Klaude Klappers. Are you Chester Smedley, the son of my second cousin Maude Klappers Smedley?”
“Yep, and I am here for your funeral! What’s going on here?”replied a baffled Smedley.
“Oh, I can explain that. We had an explosion in one of our meth labs and the firemen mistook the badly fried “cooker” for being me.” explained Klaude Klapper. “We tried to let you know but it was too late as you had already left.”
With that, Smedley tore open the envelope the crop duster pilot had given him and read from a letter with a Sardine Airlines heading: “Dear Mr. Smedley, Sardine Airlines regrets that effective today they can no longer accept you as a passenger on any of our flights due to the havoc you created on flight 2067. In addition, we are suing you for $20,000 in damages to our aircraft lavatory. And you can forget about getting your eyeglasses back. Adios, madre.”
Next week: Smedley Commences!