Tonight (well, last night now, I just havn't made it to bed yet), we were departing Deadhorse (Prudhoe Bay) to return home to Fairbanks. We wanted to get more direct to fairbanks and a different altitude. 15,000 ft to stay under a strong headwind in the flight levels.
Anyway, we ask center if we can have 15 for a final and more direct. He comes back with "Frontier 10, you can go wherever you want!" Now, tonight I was flying with our cheif pilot, a funny guy. His response is "Frontier 10, in that case, we'd like to go to China." Center, having a sense of humor comes back with "Frontier 10, cleared to China via Wake Island, maintain one five thousand... or you can proceed direct Fairbanks."
We're sitting there amused at the controller and glad he has a sense of humor when he comes back... "Frontier 10, my supervisor wasn't very amused at the last, I need to confirm you understand that you are NOT cleared to China, it was a joke. Proceed direct Fairbanks at one five thousand."
Come on now, sounded like the poor controller had gotten a chewing out too. No wonder it's so hard to get a response to jokes in responses with these guys with supervisors getting upset so easy.
He was probobly controlling at least half of the state and probobly had 5 aircraft talking to him.