Airline Meals Are Wonderful (and you can't change my mind)

Love is stored in the sniccsnacc

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We've been on tons of airplanes, man.

So far, as of April 2021, Ethan and I have spent over 60 collective hours on airplanes of all kinds. Some were noisy and some were quiet; some were super cozy and some were uncomfortable; some were packed to the brim and some were unsettlingly empty. But none of them provided food that wasn't wonderful.

And that's why I still don't understand why airline food is still a grumpy punchline in the year of our Lord 2022. Granted, I'm one of the least picky people I've met. But at this point I feel pretty darn qualified to have an opinion, and I'm still waiting to be disappointed.

There are many reasons I love them, but it mostly boils down to the quality of food, the fact that we're getting a meal at all, and the gold-innocent joy I feel when I can share a meal with a stranger.

From a purely quality-based standpoint, the first time I heard of airline meals was with a gross tone of voice. So I imagined cheap cafeteria or dorm diner food: barely-rehydrated veggies, hot pockets still frozen in the middle, chicken nugget composites that are dry and soggy at the same time, the works.

But every single meal we've had has been wonderfully made, even down to the perfect rice texture. I didn't know this, but catering companies based around each airline specifically engineer each meal for an airplane cabin's funky air pressure and crowd density, which means the seasonings and moisture contents are adjusted specifically. Explains why they're always so much better than any leftovers I've microwaved.

Also the complimentary emotional gratification I get from airline food is miraculous every time. When you step into the dim plane cabin from the brightness of the airport, most people have two things on their mind: all these humans and their ride home. It's cramped, it's weird, and nobody on the plane is really their best self. Traveling at all is an ordeal, especially in the military and especially when your first PCS.

The Japan chapter of our lives started with the worst long-winded and rambling prologue ever, thanks to the dual ailments of Covid and administrative-based emotional constipation. But the atmosphere totally switched once all of us were loaded onto the 11-hour rotator flight from Seattle to Misawa AFB. Finally none of us had nothing to stress about, nowhere to hurry up and wait for, for the next eleven hours.

Everyone around me cozied up and tucked into their tiny territory, elbows in and wrists up like 1940's cartoon characters, gripping hobbit-sized cutlery to saw into their chicken cordon bleu while watching Alita: Battle Angel almost simultaneously. It felt like we were the orphans in Madeline, all surrounding the same disproportionately long table after a long day. Pure, contented happiness. I've been seeking out that emotional high for an entire year now.

That's the feeling I wish I could frame and put on the wall of my home, the feeling of being surrounded by strangers to have a true moment of snack-induced calm with. I want to frame the feeling I had sitting next to Sir-San on our last flight, from Tokyo to Misawa.

When Ethan's and my tickets got separated at the last minute, we ended up having to sit next to strangers. Tokyo is infested with some of the most elegant and beautiful human beings that Ethan and I have ever seen, but this dude was sharp. Tailored blue suit, mirror-polished shoes, Omega-style watch, the works. He looked exactly like this. I've never sat that close to someone who was so clean that he had absolutely no smell whatsoever. A sir in every interpretation of the word, whether English or Japanese. So... Sir-San.

Anyway, I shoved my scuffed carry-on & electronics above my head and flumphed my unwashed T-shirt & sweats in the seat.

I felt that same searing ache in my soul that I got at the shrine: about eight thousand questions wedged in my mouth that I wished I could ask Sir-San in that 2 1/2 hour flight, like popcorn kernels stuck in my teeth. While he studied what looked like a textbook I read the first half of The Outsiders, which is of course concerningly relatable until the stabby bits. It felt so weird. Ponyboy wouldn't have given a single thought to average joes in Japan; the only time he would probably have thought of this entire continent would have been in the context of the US intervening in the Vietnam War that year, or grownups telling stories about Japan bombing Pearl Harbor. I thought about my family in Texas and Florida in 1965, one parent 3 years old and the other one 8, going to schools in the south that had only become legally de-segregated 10 years before.

And 57 years later, Sir-San settled into his airplane seat in Tokyo and flipped his pages and checked his watch and fidgeted with his wedding ring — and those two kids' stinky lil bambina sat next to him like a bag of chips. That feeling of weirdness slowly became obscene. What am I doing here, reading some 9th-grade-level yeehaw murder like I own the place? Would he relate to even an inch of this story? Squinting smiles at your bros in a hot dusty parking lot? Sneaking into a drive-in movie? Feeling obligated to put on a tough front to protect your gang from getting bullied by rich kids, when all you want is to escape to nature and watch the same sunset that everyone else sees?

How did we get here? And where could we possibly go from here?

And then drinks came, and I ordered a coffee. And Sir-San ordered a coffee. And we both took the tiny cup with two grateful hands, poured the exact same amount of sugar and creamer in our cups, stirred with the same funky little spoon. And we both watched out the window as we dipped below the clouds, admiring the same ferries and sailboats on the photo-flat waves from the exact same distance in the sky. I didn't need to know the answer to those last two questions, because for 2 1/2 hours they finally didn't matter. No past, an infinite present. Worlds apart and inches away, somehow Sir-San and I had a coffee together.

It's a miracle that any of us are able to fly at all, but the real miracle is that we spend that time sharing something so simple with a stranger. That's what it's all about.