What’s the Deal With Airline Food?

My friends’ ability to fall asleep in any environment at any given time impresses me immensely. I’ve seen some of my closest pals sprawled out on living room sofas, library benches and computer stations. They go into what resembles a coma during class, collapsing behind the cover of a laptop screen, never once drawing the attention of the professor. I’ve even seen friends succumb to slumbering on classroom floors. Much like a hired mercenary who has killed scores and scores of people, I’ve become desensitized to these ever-bizarre sleep locales. I could walk in on a friend laid out in a urinal and not think anything of it.

At the current moment, I wish I could somehow summon the ability to just pass out, with no regard for location. My computer clock says it’s 12:47 in the morning, but that’s the time in Evanston. Right now, it’s…I have no idea. Time ceases to exist on airplane rides, replaced by markers like a distant glow of an orange sunset and the slightly effeminate flight attendant’s beverage rounds every hour.

While everyone else on this flight appears to be completely lights out, I’m wide awake, my eyes affixed to a preview for Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium with Spanish subtitles playing on the overhead screen. I see a few heads rustling around, but they quickly stop. Somebody’s snoring really loudly, begging the question of what jury would possibly convict a large mob made up of passengers on this plane of murdering a really loud snorer? Some crimes must be punished.

I tried to sleep. I opened up my complimentary passenger pack and pulled out the pillow. I switched my iPod to some especially soft ambient music. I rested my head against the pillow and shut my eyes. An hour later, the last wave of gentle ambient sound vanished from my headphones, and I was still awake, just faking sleep in order to fit in with a crowd that can’t even tell I’m not like them.

I blame my first-ever encounter with airline food for this. Before, all the airlines ever gave us to eat during domestic flights was a soda and, if we were really lucky, an ant-sized portion of pretzels. On my connecting flight earlier in the day, I felt a rush of joy when the attendant asked if I’d like another minute bag of pretzels. I was dumbfounded at first, speechless, wondering what the catch was. After the flight attendant gave my confused gaze a confused gaze of her own, I took them, and ripped into this Manna from Heaven. Eighty calories have never tasted so good.

So the prospect of getting an entire meal overjoyed me, especially after the hour-and-a-half delay and revelation The Bucket List wouldn’t be the inflight film, but rather the putrid ovarie-tastic feature 27 Dresses. My spirits skyrocketed further when I realized I actually got to choose what I wanted to eat for dinner – either chicken with rice or lasagna. Before, the attendant would hurl a bag of trail mix at me and that was it. Now, I had a choice. And an after dinner brownie.

I forgot to recall one of the most famous questions ever posed in the history of man. “What’s the deal with airline food?” I foolishly ignored Jerry Seinfeld’s ponderings, too drunk on my dinner-time democracy to remember that, regardless of what I chose, it would most likely suck. I selected the lasagna, and peeled back the plastic wrapped over it. Otherwise known as the first clue something was wrong.

Saying the lasagna was bad wouldn’t be fair – it was edible, even if it looked a little too plastic for my taste. The first few bites tasted fine enough, a little cold, but who was I to complain at god-only-knows A.M. But the further I dug into this meal straight out of Barbie’s house, it became more off-putting. In particular, the cheese at the bottom tasted how I imagine a fine, newly form mold to taste. Except coated in lukewarm sauce.

I ate half of the lasagna before throwing in my Continental Airlines complementary napkin, and tried chasing the taste away with Diet Coke and brownie. Yet the taste lingered. The taste still lingers. And now some guy is hitting someone else with pillows. The insanity is setting in.

I’ve slept through midterms, earthquakes, and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Yet the one time I actually want to sleep, while The King of Queens plays onscreen reminding me of all mankind’s atrocities, I’m foiled by the lasting taste of not-so-hot Italian food.

And Everybody Loves Raymond just came on. What’s the deal with that?