How I Met Sir Vladimir (old blog)

I just stumbled across a blog I wrote at age… oh dear god, 18?  If you read this, keep in mind this took place during my early days of hating Delta, and! (I believe) the very same day I discovered coffee.

Enjoy “Sir Vladimir”, unedited.

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January 5th, 2006
7:10pm, Flight 104 Air Portugal, Somewhere over Boston

Insight into my addled little head would prove disastrous. I have determined this (for the umpteenth time) roughly thirty four seconds ago. I made a massive discovery just then.

There is someone living in my head. No, I don’t mean this in a completely literary way… though at the same time I might be fibbing on this point so that my strangely interested reader doesn’t turn me over to the psychiatric authorities for being stricken with madness. I am, in fact, stricken with madness, just to assure you. Anyway. Returning to my massive discovery.

There is a resounding echo in my head. An echo of some sort of turbulent and galavanting brain wave that for some reason wishes to reverberate with sound. As in, I hear my own thoughts. I know we all hear our own thoughts… but I have just come to the astounding and breath-stealing conclusion that they literally… dear god, how to put this properly into near-scientific terms… they speak. Aloud. These galavanting brain waves speak aloud with SOUND in my HEAD, as if there is a little crazy person sitting up there with a miniaturized version of Psychology Today screaming his head off when he comes across interesting topics. Now, regardless of Miranda Rights, I fear I’m now inexorably committed to a mental institution. Seriously. I’m thinking of checking myself in.

Regardless. This little man, upon command and/or involuntary shall scream, laugh maniacally, sing off-key ditties by Cher, ponder so hard that his mini-brain beings to melt into mini-brain-mush… anything. I can command him. He is under my command. By God, I wish I could find a man that I could control in a similar fashion.

So I’m sitting here in seat 15H, next to a guy that thankfully doesn’t smell like old cheese (though unfortunately half of the other people on this plane do, and it’s like a collective cloud that refuses to be shut out by my nostrils). Limburger… Swiss…

Well anyway. I made a second massive discovery today, as well. Well, it’s not technically my second, due to the fact that it preceded the little-crazy-person-in-my-head theory. LCPIMH. I was eating some cashews roughly seven minutes ago now, and before I knew it, one of them was knocked to the floor. NO! That is not so! It willfully FLUNG itself off my questionably sturdy tray table ONTO the floor due to it’s propensity for ADVENTURE. What’s that? Yes. YES. I do, with my entire being, believe that this cashew embodies an ASTOUNDING propensity for adventure. That is not to say that ALL cashews, even those flung onto the floor by other external elements, embody any propensity for adventure whatsoever. I dare-say that such a gift is few and far between in the nut kingdom. Or is it the legume kingdom? And what the hell is a legume, anyway? It sounds like some kind of exotic boil one develops in an unsavory area that cannot be treated due to it’s connection to some vital blood vessel or something. Gross. I hope I never get that.

Anyway. So my adventurous cashew FLINGS itself to the floor, and lays there a moment, catching it’s breath from the sheer adrenaline coursing through it’s cashew-veins. It is jubilant beyond belief, and has done a thing very few of it’s family members have before. It could be likened to an impoverished child being the first of it’s clan to go to college, or to the moon. Or, on that note, find a cure for the unfortunately located legume I’m sure half the nation is plagued with. Dear god, I bet it’s something ridiculous like the statistic of how many people have a deathly fear of tray-tables, like I do. One out of four. Or at least that’s what Mom told me. And believe me, it’s taking my entire bodily will not to leap out of my seat at this very moment and scream my bloody head off. It just seems like the thing is getting closer… closer and closer and HOLLLLYYY SHIT!!!! Don’t put your seat back, you’re putting your seat back, don’t do it don’t do it don’t do it don’t AHHHHHHHHHH!!!

…

It’s okay, they’ve restrained me. So nice of them to let me have my laptop back, and the jubilantly adventurous cashew, though I’m sure he would have liked it better laying there on the floor. I convinced him he’d eventually be mashed by the churning wheels of inevitability. The drink cart.

Anyway, so eventually they let me go after several hundred promises not to let out another explosive scream about the dangerous proximity of my tray-table, and I returned to 15H with Fred. Fred, the cashew. I figured it was only right to name him.

On that note, would it be unfair to deny the little insane man living in my head a name? A title? Something for which the title “Sir” can eventually be added before. Unless he’s already been knighted, which would really complicate things. Are you? What? By god. He is. What shall I call him? Fred. No no no… Fred is the cashew…

Bob, John, Barry, Dinklestrump, Vladimir… VLADIMIR. SIR VLADIMIR. That’s it! And that totally makes sense with his British accent.

The wheels of inevitability eventually careened by, carrying in their midst a lingering sense of woe and inescapable despair… why there was such a feeling as they past, I have no idea, but Vladimir certainly had much to say about it. Though strangely, he found it funny. We began arguing, and I was making so many varied facial expressions that the old guy next to me really began to take notice of my unusualness. This made the scenario even more hilarious, naturally, and I began snorting with seemingly unfounded laughter. The flight attendant looked at me suspiciously and she zoomed by again with her cart.

As I sat there essentially laughing and arguing with myself, another cart came by with the peaceable offerings of food. I took this as a sign, kind of a ‘white flag’ sort of thing. Fred and Vladimir simultaneously agreed. Sorry, Sir Vladimir… jesus, will you let it go already…!

I had the choice between pasta and chicken, and after several minutes of deliberation sided with poultry. What I failed to anticipate (and to Vladimir’s delight), was upon unveiling the miniature tomb that housed my “chicken” that the stuff looked more like chicken vomit than the actual deceased bird. I ate it anyway, because of the starving children. I think I saw a legume rolling around somewhere in there, too. I ate that as well.

These bouts of madness eventually cease their run, don’t worry. The lunacy eventually passes and I revert to a state that could be l likened to a stewed potato. And yes, if you’re wondering, you can stew a potato. You can also freeze and microwave and blow up a kiwi, but from experience, I’d highly suggest you don’t do that.

On second thought, DO.

The women in front of me looks suspiciously like she’s thinking about putting her seat back again, so I think I’m going to escape to the bathroom for a few hours and contemplate the meaning of my existence. It certainly can’t be to come to realizations about the fat little British guy in my head that somehow got knighted; do you know how many people die for that title, and he receives it? Oh, who cares anyway, he’s safe in my head. Don’t put it back don’t put it back don’t put it baccckkkk– AHHHHHHHHH! Damn it, here they come again. Excuse me, I now need to sprint toward the back of the plane and find some way to get out. It’s only thirty thousand feet or so, right? After all, I’m sure my massive wad of lunacy will cushion my fall. Vladimir agrees, so do take care of Fred. Bon voyage!