Thread by @EnswellJones

I have bad luck in airplanes. If you see me on your flight, you should get off the plane and take a different one, because some shit is going down. I’ve been in emergency landings; I’ve flown to the wrong airport; I’ve been in a brawl because a guy objected to my CBC T-shirt.

But by far my worst flight was on a now-defunct Brazilian airline called VASP. The hilarious thing is, I wasn’t flying anywhere near Brazil. If I’m remembering right, VASP had a Sao Paulo to Miami to New York to Toronto flight. You could catch the Toronto-New York leg for $99.

I was working at the National Post at the time, and while that newspaper spent thousands of dollars to send reporters to Mongolia to watch a meteor shower (it was cloudy) and to fly the last Concorde flight (it was fast), it wanted to spend exactly $99 to send me to New York.

My fateful flight was actually the return: New York to Toronto. I can’t even begin to tell you how dodgy that plane was. The toilet was a bucket. My seatbelt was a rope. It’s the only time I’ve been on a plane and felt more than a little afraid that I might get mugged.

The good thing about flying VASP was that the plane was always practically empty. But on that flight, I shared my row with another guy. Older, well-dressed, tan, dignified. I remember thinking he looked awfully polished to be flying VASP. I wondered if he had a secret life.

Anyway, we’re flying, sort of. The only entertainment was a movie screen that displayed our flight data—our altitude, our speed, the time we were expected to arrive in Hell. I stared at that screen like my will alone was keeping us in the air: 30,000 feet. Steady. Hold. Good.

Suddenly there was a tremendous bang, metal on metal. The entire plane shuddered. I looked at the guy next to me, and he seemed completely unconcerned. I was like, am I insane? Did you not hear that? But he sat there as though he were contemplating his next chess move.

And then… the plane began dropping. It was dropping so fast that I could feel it, but worse, I could see it: 30,000 feet became 29,000 became 28,000. Once it was 25,000 and still dropping fast, I decided my fate was sealed. I was going to die on a cut-rate Brazilian airline.

Friends, I have to tell you that I did not go gently into that good night. I started swearing at the top of my lungs. Mostly I cursed the newspaper that put me on this CHEAP FUCKING BROKE-ASS PLANE YOU FUCKING DICKFACED ASSHOLES GODDAMN YOU—

I yelled all the while we dropped: 22,000 feet, 20,000, 18,000. Meanwhile, Ricardo Montalbán next to me just gripped his armrests and serenely welcomed the sweet release of death. Whatever his secret, he was going to his grave with it. He didn’t even break a sweat.

YOU FUCKING PIECES OF SHIT I CAN’T FUCKING BELIEVE I’M GOING OUT ON FUCKING VASP YOU STUPID SONS OF BITCHES—when, at 12,000 feet, the plane suddenly stopped falling. It levelled out. And then we started climbing again. All the way back to 30,000 feet.

A glistening flight attendant came around shortly after and wordlessly handed out buns. Like—a roll. That was it. There was no announcement. No explanation. Sorry we scared you so badly your asshole is now inside out. Please enjoy this complimentary baked good with nothing on it.

I was incredulous. Also relieved. Also… ashamed? I just sat there in my various puddles, my throat hoarse from my hollering, nibbling on my bun. My seat mate ate his immaculately, of course. I imagined he spent a lot of time enjoying the embrace of fine Corinthian leather.

He didn’t speak until we landed. He looked at me, and I looked at him, two men who had stared down death together in very different ways, former strangers who had seen each other’s soul. “I thought that was it,” he finally said. And then he smiled, and he winked: “And you?”