Thursday, May 8, 2008

How to sleep on a airplane

Every time I fly I get sleepy, usually because I had to stay up until 2 in the morning packing a bag and obsessively checking that the grill is turned off, and then had to get up 3 hours later because I bought an el cheapo plane ticket that leaves at the crack of dawn. So I try to sleep on the plane. Sleeping on the plane is very unpleasant, primarily because I am taller than the average bloke was back in 1951 when they compiled all the biometric stats that they use to design things like plane seats, even unto this very day.

So because I am taller than the average 75 year old, I have two problems. First, when the idiot in front of me (and there always is one because it's on my frequent flyer profile) whangs his chair back one microsecond after we leave the tarmac, my kneecaps are forced up into my kidneys. Second, my head sticks up above the top of the seat so that even if I whang my seat back as hard as I can into the loser behind me my head still wobbles as if my neck was made of spaghetti. Both of these things mean it's hard to sleep.

I haven't thought of a solution to the first problem, apart from vomiting on the guy's head to force him to vacate his seat. But I have thought of an ingenious solution to the wobbly head problem: orange bags.

You know the orange (colour) bags made of plastic mesh that oranges (fruit) are sold in? You take one of them, pop it over your head, fasten it snugly under your chin, and loop the top through a hook that you superglue to the overhead luggage compartment. (Once the airlines cotton on to the fact that customer satisfaction rates soar with this scheme they will install the hook themselves.) The orange bag will support your head and hold it steady so you can sleep. The mesh allows for easy breathing, and also does not conceal your face, which is an essential product feature in this paranoid world of terrorism and identity theft. In fact, as long as you cut an appropriate hole in the bag, you don't even have to take it off to eat!

I'm confident that this is going to be the Next Big Thing in air travel. But I am not greedy. I am donating this idea to the world to make sure that everyone can benefit from it. Spaghetti-necks of the world unite! Stick your head in an orange bag today!

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