I’ve got to admit that the whole blog writing enterprise took a bit of a dive recently when my personal life became a bit more hectic. It’s not a case of going to yoga 10 times a week and no time for writing (I’ve been going three times a week), but I did have a family bereavement and thus I’ve not been feeling creative.

 

The whole series of events really took a lot out of me, but I was utterly shocked at how my employers treated me when I requested time to be with my family. Initially they were very respectful and I got a few weeks off and travelled home to Dublin. Just after I arrived back from Joey’s funeral they called me and ask me what depth of relationship I had with him. Stunned doesn’t even cover it, I had known Joey since he was a kid and had been very close to him before I left to make my gold in the desert (insert sarcasm here). He just didn’t understand how important a family pet is to an Irish family. Joey is a dog, in case you missed that, and he has been an integral part of our lives for almost 18 years. Needless to say, the local custom is not to seek, or give, compassionate leave for family bereavement when the family dog dies.

 

In light of all of these events I was accused of misleading my employers and generally being a shitty employee. They also accused me of running this blog, which I denied, but I’m not sure they were buying it.

 

Returning to flying after such a break was a little bit tough to be honest, but I am hard working when it comes to flying so studied hard in preparation.

 

First day back in the hot seat and I’m flying with this fat mess I’ve flown with before, always stuffing his face with sausages and tomato ketchup. The smell alone on the flight deck is enough to turn my stomach but nothing really turns an airplane into a vomit-comet quite like turbulence.

 

When we reached our cruising level, he got his breakfast brought in (full Irish) and he completed his passenger announcement. He’s actually eating sausages while doing the announcement. While all this is going on I’m filming airplanes flying by and questioning whether or not chemtrails are real. I’ve since gone deep on this and it’s much like the flat-earth stuff the people who promote it are crazy but their conviction in their belief is so strong it’d make you wonder if they’re right about it all.

 

Just as he completes his announcement the airplane starts to bounce. I’m pilot monitoring even though he is stuffing his face, he has failed to hand over control. I ask him if it’s okay to turn on the seatbelt sign and he grumbles something that I can’t understand through the sausage meat and ketchup. I just turn them on.

 

Before he knows it the airplane is bouncing pretty hard and he’s relentless with the sausages. He just keeps stuffing them in there like a gerbil storing them in his cheeks. This is only going one way and in my mind I’m going through the recovery manoeuvre for a loss of control in flight. Luckily I studied the upset prevention and recovery training material in depth and suddenly it stops. Turbulence is mystical beyond my understanding sometimes.

 

I look over at him as if to say, that was close and the look in his eye tells me something isn’t quite right. I start running my eyes over the instruments and all of a sudden he projectile vomits over most of his instruments and the centre of the cockpit. It’s like someone turned on a blender with the lid off except it’s not the sweet smell of vanilla protein, but the acidic smell of sausage and ketchup puke.

 

The cockpit is destroyed and I am uncontrollably laughing, only because I didn’t get hit by any of his puke, and he is gone some odd shade of green. I can save an airplane from potential disaster with all the study I want but I can’t save a fat-man from over eating on what was in effect a roller coaster. It’s times like this when Joey would have come in handy; he’d have licked that puke right off the control column.

 

R.I.P. Joey