Rat removal strategy

While we are kept waiting to find out what happens next, we get to meet Hans’s cat at least. Is it just me, or do I see a close resemblance to the famous Garfield in that cat. I wonder why that is? We grew up reading about the adventures of the worlds laziest cat. But we had no idea Garfield had a sister.

Since you guys have proven to me that you actually read what’s underneath the comic, I decided to share a story my crew chief told me last night. I was laughing the whole night and it made me think of Chuck:

When my chief was a crew chief in the air force working on cargo planes (for a different country and before everything became PC) they were told they had to fly a passenger from A to B somewhere in Africa. The passenger was a “desk soldier” and had never been in the cockpit of an airplane so they decided to make the flight more interesting for her. They took off and proceeded on their way during what was just a routine flight. The lady was thoroughly enjoying her experience in the cockpit with “the guys”.
But when it came time to start the decent and approach the copilot said to the captain “Well captain, it’s time to start the approach” to which the captain responded “Oh no, I don’t do the approaches. I am only a take-off captain”.

“What? But I am also just a take-off captain!” the copilot responded.
“So you’re saying we have only two take off captains and no landing captains on this plane?”
“How are we supposed to land this thing?”
“I can’t believe this. Why would they schedule the two of us together?”
“It makes no sense! What were they thinking over in dispatch?”

The lady was getting really nervous at this point.

“Well, I guess we can give it a try.”
“We don’t have any options really because fuel is getting low. And I’ve seen what the landing captain does once before.”

They proceeded with the approach and started to over steer the aircraft just slightly, messing around not picking up the glide slope 😉
The lady freaked out, started crying, total panic. They couldn’t even console her after they told her it was just a joke and there was no such thing as a take-off captain and a landing captain. The chief thought she may have never flown in a plane since…
I don’t think it was necessarily a mean spirited joke because they were probably expecting her to say “Yeah, right” at some point but apparently they were too convincing.

But doesn’t this story sound like something Chuck and Julio might be involved in?
Can it be that “Chicken Wings” is not invented after all?
😉

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10 comments on “Rat removal strategy
  1. Moose says:

    Isn’t having passengers getting scared and hysterical during a flight SOP for Chuck?
    How would they know it was a joke?
    For that matter, how would WE know it was a joke? 🙂

  2. Deathknyte says:

    We have a really fat cat who does manage to catch mice yet. No idea how because she actually lays down to eat and drink rather than stand up. Very lazy.

  3. Speedsix says:

    What a great story! 😀
    Funny enough, I had a nonsensical conversation with a workmate from the US (I´m german) along similar lines, sometime ago (please read this aloud or you won´t get the point):
    Sunday afternoon: A passenger walks into a GA airport, having got a joyride as a birthday gift. There´s 2 lightplane pilots sitting around, wearing pilot´s jackets with “Skyknights” in bold letters written on them and the man asks one of them, if he wants to make that flight.
    “No,” replies the pilot, “I can´t take you up. I don´t know how to take off.” “Errr, pardon?”
    “Yes, I can only land an aircraft, Talk to my buddy over there.” “Oh, really?” “Yes, I´m Sir Lancelot, my buddy is Sir Takesoffalot!”

  4. markm says:

    Deathknyte: your cat isn’t lazy, she’s saving her energy for chasing the mice. Or perhaps she is a really good ambush hunter – for most humans, the difficult part of that is staying absolutely still for hours.

  5. Magnoire says:

    I work with the public (Librarian) so I know how amazingly naive the general public can be in what most people think are common situations.
    Speedsix, that is too funny!

  6. jan olieslagers says:

    Mike’s opening story made my day, I did choke with laughter. And sure enough that story will be passed on to my fellow aviators. Ah, the number of times I took off and asked myself how and in what shape I would be landing…

    BTW To further complicate matters, my favourite romance on “the matter of Britain” describes noble (?) Sir Launcelot as “F_c_alot” (“Merlin”, by Robert Nye, a solid recommendation for those who have some basics of Kabbalah AND can stand rough talk, especially rough sexual talk)

  7. Johsua says:

    The funny thing is that even a fat, lazy cat gets rid of the mice. They know that cats are predators and they don’t want to stick around for that.

    The house where I grew up has a big garage and we always had it open and a cat living in and around it. As soon as the cat died we ended up with an infestation.

  8. Speedsix says:

    I own 2 cats and I live in an old half timbered farmhouse which seems to invite mice into the walls as soon as the winter approaches. They don´t stay too long though: I guess it´s that very characteristic short “du-THUD” sound and the concussion that is caused when a cat jumps down from a table or similar that drives those pesky little rodents away, telling them there is a cat in the house.

  9. Tampa says:

    They say that pets are very much like their owners…

  10. JPKalishek says:

    When I lived in Texas, it was my fattest cat who kept catching the mice. And geckos.
    And scorpions. (well, only one scorpion.)

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