Flight Snacks

I've had pretty good luck when it comes to snacks at the airport, largely due to the Mild Wife's planning. In case you were too lazy to click on that last link, the Mild Wife both made and packed us some pizza to munch on during the whole airport process. I was both thoroughly amused and very content about my snacks. Put it this way: my exact description of the pizza was "breakfast of champions" and my exact description of the Mild Wife was "she's kind of awesome like that."

This time around, though, I had a much different experience with airline snacks, but one that made me laugh just as much.

First, let me set the scene: I was traveling on Halloween, to one of the smaller airports in the U.S. The actual location wasn't really all that important, but the two bits of information I just gave meant that the flight wasn't particularly full. In fact, it seemed like the flight was maybe half full. We were all just glad that we had more leg room and could lounge as comfortably as we wanted in the seats (relatively speaking, of course).

At some point, though, the flight attendants passed around the in-flight snacks. Typically, this is a small bag of peanuts or crackers of some sort. I'm not entirely sure why this is the snack of choice, but I've seen it on enough flights to recognize it as the thing that you get when on a flight (side note: I once read that food tastes bad/bland on airplanes in part because you don't smell so well at altitude. It may or may not be true, but I do wonder if that fact drives the choice of snacks towards the peanuts because of their flavor).

The other typical portion of the in-flight snack is a beverage of some sort. You ask for a beverage, and they then provide you with a single cup of said drink. I don't think I've ever seen anyone get refills before. Basically, just enough to wash down the peanuts/crackers.

I should have realized things were going to be on this flight when I heard what the flight attendant was saying to people as he walked by. Instead of something like, "would you like some peanuts?" he was asking people "you want some of this?" I thought it was funny, and I chuckled. I'm not quite sure what I thought was happening, but I just figured he was trying to be entertaining.

As it turns out, he was asking that because he had way more than enough for the entire flight. So, when I responded to his question in the affirmative, he just dumped a fist full of snacks onto my tray. There were so many bags that some of them started to spill on to the seat next to me. There was no one in that seat, but it still made me scramble to make sure nothing fell even further.

It was the same basic story with the drink. Rather than just get a small cup's worth of ginger ale, they gave me the whole can. Not only was I allowed more than my usual allotment, I could serve myself the second and third portions. Talk about living it up.

My favorite part was just how the whole thing looked. In fact, I was so amused about it that I showed the Mild Wife a picture of the whole thing:

Yup, I had a full blown stash to myself. There was no way that I was going to finish the whole thing in one (literal) sitting, so I ended up packing some of it away. As the lady a couple of seats away from me mentioned, "I guess I have a snack stash now."

A snack stash indeed. Apparently flights on Halloween can be quite entertaining.