Happy birthday to the pandemic. We are entering a solid year of this life changing world event. I know there are different theories on how we are going to end it, having to do with different health measures, etc. Unfortunately, they aren’t going to work. Because believe it or not, this whole world problem was caused by a jinx. A jinx that I caused. And everyone knows there is only one way to undue a jinx, you have to buy it a Coke. Let me explain.
Few lives and industries have been unchanged in the last year. The airline industry is one that has seen a particular radical shift from optimism. At the end of 2019, things were looking overwhelmingly positive in the world of aviation. After over a decade of little upward mobility and career progression, the “good times” wave for pilots was finally rolling in.
Oh if I could only see one year into the future in December 2019! After spending over a decade at a regional airline, barely making ends meet, I had made the big time! I was piloting a 757 coast to coast while eating a prime rib served to me on a tray with real silverware. Sure, it was an airline-food prime rib, and all the grey beards (old pilots) called it horse meat. But it was a hot meal fed to me in the sky, and I was entitled to it, by my labor contract! I was a flying sky king! (Just to put things in perspective, at my old job, there was a period of time when pilots were expected to bring their own water to save the company money).
It felt good, TOO good. Almost like I was French nobility right before the French Revolution, sucking on snail shells, and eating warm cheese dishes, not foreseeing the coming ruin. My captain and I talked about how the future looked bright for pilots: there were tons of retirements coming, there were more job openings for pilots than pilots to fill them, wages were going up and we could live forever like sky nobility! That’s when I made the joke that I still regret; the one that jinxed the world.
The captain said, with some trepidation, because he had lived through the previous decade as well, “Things look so good, I mean I hate to say it, but things finally look up. The time to be a pilot is now. I can’t think of what would derail the good times train.”
And I said, “Yeah, except for maybe a global pandemic or something.” Damn it. I am sorry. Why did I say that? Maybe it was because the stories were just starting to come out of China of a new virus they were locking down Wuhan for. Maybe it was the unease of things being too good in my life, and that little voice in my head saying, “You don’t belong up here with these sky kings, you are a peasant who should eat airplane entrails (whatever that is).”
It was probably a combination of the two. Little could I foresee that three short months later, borders would close, travel as we know it would cease to exist and it would be my last flight for the year of 2020. You could make the argument that it was purely a coincidence: one dumb joke made by an idiot with a long history of making dumb jokes couldn’t cause our current situation. After a year though, I am convinced, it was at least partially my fault. I clearly jinxed us. By us, I mean everyone. In the world. I am sorry. Whatever I need to do to unjinx us, I am ready to commit to it. Does that mean I need to buy the world a Coke? Fine. I just need to get back in the air. You see, in that same cockpit where they serve me prime rib, they also serve me Cokes (classic, diet and Zero) at my request. So as soon as I start flying, I will get one for you… I will get one for everyone! And undo this whole mess that I have caused.
