The male flight attendant who had escorted us to our seats stood up and demonstrated air bags. Duh. Like we couldn’t figure that one out? Still, I checked to make sure my forward pocket had one. Better to be sure than empty-handed in dire circumstances.
The attendant placed the barf bag down and then carefully explained how to buckle our safety belts, (like we didn’t use them every day in our automobiles?) He demonstrated the quick release button, so I tried that out. Mine worked. So did the side buttons on my seat and the footrest. The stew spoke a moment about the magazine each pocket contained. I’d already seen that while searching for the barf bag.
Next the man explained about the plane’s exits and how we were forbidden from carrying our bags with us if we needed to get off the plane quickly.
“Why would we need to exit quickly?” I asked Timothy. “Wouldn’t we be up in the air?”
“Sh,” Timothy said, and I realized then that the flight attendant had overheard me.
“Do we have a first timer?” the man asked.
Timothy nodded, so the man carefully repeated that it was only in case of fire. Then he went on to assure us that such a thing wasn’t likely. I still didn’t understand how exiting midflight would help us, but I kept quiet after that.
The attendant continued as if there’d been no interruption. His canned speech discussed a slide that would pop out if we needed it at landing and oxygen masks that would drop down if the cabin pressure changed. He said some other things about opening the exits, and safety tips for emergencies, but I’d had heard more than I wanted to hear and tuned him out. Honestly, the more the man talked, the more nervous about flying I became.
He finally stopped lecturing, and a really pretty stewardess walked down the aisle to check seat belts. I’d fastened mine the moment we got onboard, which is what I always did in a vehicle. She stopped at our seats to chide Timothy for not having his strap buckled. He sighed heartily and obediently fastened his. He also put the divider down between us. Was that a safety thing, too?