in-flight lessons

i'm quite ambivalent about cebu pacific gimmicks – not just the recently viral dancing-to-in-flight-safety-demonstration gimmicks, but also the contests they hold just after the seatbelt light is switched off. if you haven't been on a cebu pac flight, here's a quick rundown: they ask passengers to show an item (like a 'bring me' game for lazy folk) and the person who raises the item the quickest gets something exciting. like a purse. with the cebu pac logo. whoohooo.

christine and i took a cebu pac flight to boracay last month. christine is someone i consider to be very laid-back. she's seen it all, she's been through a lot, she's done it all. it would seem that it would take a massive effort to impress the woman who has traveled the world for work and pleasure and knows a million (and a half) people from everywhere. although from almost 20 years of knowing her, i know that she'd always had a competitive heart, i also know she has become more grounded and relaxed on many levels (except when 'attacked' by harmless little fishies, but that's another boracay story). so a tiny cebu pac game couldn't possibly interest her, right?

true enough, when the mechanics were being explained, christine seemed almost half-asleep, probably from her hectic work week prior to our mini-vacation. i had also started to doze off myself ... probably because i like sleeping. i kept my sunglasses on because the window was open and i was pretending to be a paparazzi-hounded celebrity.

the flight attendant's voice was very faint in my ears at that point: 'who can show me a pair of sunglasses?' without warning and with lightning-fast hand speed that should be reserved for life-or-death emergencies and tv gameshows, christine grabbed the shades from my face and held it up frantically while sounding like she was stifling a scream. i, on the other hand, had let out an actual scream of pain. if you've never had sunglasses snatched while you were wearing them, then let me explain why in my usual verbose manner: OUCHY.

life lessons learned:
1. we never really change.
2. do not wear shades inside a moving plane. especially not beside type A types who want to win insignificant items with an image of a smiling yellow plane on them.

ps, christine didn't win. she thought she did though, and looked really disappointed when the flight attendant gave the prize to the person seated behind her. i think christine finally went to sleep after that.