I had the best seat in the house, of course. Seat 14D. It was the best because I was sitting there. The lady to my right had the second-best seat but she didn’t know it. This was all because I had happened to do a tea leaf check this morning. Fairly routine, and I wasn’t expecting any issues. But there it was, a 78% chance that the plane would crash.
I wasn’t even sure what tea she had been drinking. I mean, I think it was Assam and that is never as clear as say, Darjeeling. In any event, you just have to go with what you have in front of you. You know, I once had a friend cause a major international incident because she had believed what was said at the bottom of a pot of PG tips. Imagine! These days, I put the most faith in a strong cup of no-nonsense Yorkshire brew. Can’t go wrong there.
But 78% chance assuming Assam! That was bad. So I decided I had to act and quickly. Why? Well, that is simple enough: it is my job. I am a guardian angel.
Really it would have been best to simply have stopped her getting on the plane in the first place. A car breakdown, a phone failure: it really wouldn’t have taken that much. But I was otherwise engaged. Honestly, I have hundreds of clients and so many of them are a risk at any one time. Plus, my handler called me in for an impromptu worship session. You can appreciate that by the time I had got to those tea leaves I was seriously playing catch-up.
Anyway, here I was, ready for action. Six feet of hardcore angelic intent. Yes, yes, In a short skirt. Well, that’s just how I am. I had to buy a ticket and pay premium to get the right seat. At least I got through the passport check even though my documents were written up for someone looking quite a bit, shall we say, more masculine. I had hit the girl at the desk with my best smile as she started to tell me the passport wasn’t mine. “Oh, that’s perfect,” she said quickly. Angelic glamour can fool almost anyone, but a smile can be better. Pity I can’t get my paperwork redone by Head Office; those old clowns are so inflexible over the sexual identity stuff. I’m a Trans-Angel. Get over it guys!
We were thirty minutes into our flight and the service trolley was coming around. Would there be time for a sandwich? What does one have when the wings are about to drop off? And that was when the thought occurred to me: I was on a plane about to crash out of the sky.
Look, in my defense, I had been rushing and improvising. It had simply slipped my mind. “Doris,” I said to the lady in seat 14E, touching her arm gently, “You don’t know me but I do know you. We have a little problem and I have to confess I may have screwed up a bit. Tell me please – and this is ever so important – what type of tea were you drinking this morning?”
She looked at me all puzzled and I sighed. “Look, this isn’t really my fault. I’ve been so busy all my life with my clients you see, and it never seemed all that important. Until now. Ummmm, it’s like this; I’ve never actually taken the time to learn how to fly…”