You win this round, reality
The Wrong Plane is a story about weird carry-on luggage. At the same time I was flying (and writing) from SFO to JFK, Dan Reetz was winging his way in from North Dakota—with even cooler cargo than what I imagined. (You have got to see these pictures.)
It’s also a story about a strange group of passengers. But in a comment, Nina Simon shares a real-life scene that’s—well, if not stranger, exactly, then maybe just better:
I once was on a flight seated around a group of Greek performers, sitting next to a very large man who described himself as the bodyguard to “the Michael Jackson of Greece.” They had just played Carnegie Hall and were headed to LA for more shows. Halfway through the flight, they pulled many unusual instruments out of the bulkheads and began to serenade the whole plane, clapping and singing loudly. I danced with the bodyguard in the aisle. It was a magical moment when an entire planeful of people agreed, as if by mass hypnosis, to embrace aberration in the form of art.
It’s tough to out-weird reality when reality is at its weirdest. But, I don’t mean to set it up as such a competition; in fact, I love it that writing The Wrong Plane made me extra-sensitive to the magic of Dan Reetz’s carry-on, and that posting it prompted Nina to share her story.