One day at a busy
airport, the passengers on
a commercial airliner are seated waiting for
the pilot to show up
so they can get under way.
The pilot and copilot finally appear
in the rear of the plane and begin
walking up to the cockpit through
the center aisle. Both appear to be
blind; the pilot is using a
white cane, bumping into passengers right
and left as he stumbles down
the aisle. The copilot is using a guide dog.
Both have their eyes
covered with sunglasses.
At first, the passengers do not react
thinking that it must be some
sort of practical joke. After a few
minutes though, the engines start
revving, and the airplane begins
moving down the runway.
The passengers look at each other with some
uneasiness. They start
whispering among themselves and look
desperately to the stewardesses for
reassurance.
Yet, the plane
starts accelerating rapidly, and people begin panicking.
Some
passengers are praying, and as the plane gets closer and closer to
the end of the runway, the voices are becoming more and more
hysterical.
When the plane has less than twenty feet of runway left,
there is a
sudden change in the pitch of the shouts as everyone
screams at once. At
the very last moment, the plane lifts off and is
airborne.
Up in the cockpit, the copilot breathes a sigh of
relief and tells the
pilot: “You know, one of these days the passengers
aren’t going to
scream, and we aren’t going to know when to take
off!”