A brief experiment revealed that the paper cup in which the muffin came had no taste at all either. Oddly, the lack of taste, familiar consistency, or anything else which might prompt the average person to eat the meal, instead of throwing it back at his or her captors with a screech of rage, did not stop anyone on the plane from eating it, and it did not stop the plane from filling with the odor of masticated bran flakes and banana. When I asked for a cup of coffee to wash down my Honey Bunches Of Gravel, I think I saw the flight attendant dip a brown crayon into lukewarm water. The coffee did have a flavor . Because, much though I enjoyed my thimble-sized cup of Crayola Zinger, I could really have used the caffeine.
Planes also get loud.
And the engines. The call button dinging, usually fifteen times in quick succession, because if the flight attendant can t get from first class to Row 33 in 3.7 seconds, she s just not trying. The pilot droning on about local weather conditions. Babies yowling at the pressurization of the cabin. The video telling all the passengers without frontal lobes how to operate the stupid goddamn seatbelt for the eighteenth stupid goddamn time.