Tuesday 4 February 2014

The Lufthansa Beach Ball



Sorry quality of recording not so good as my microphone is in Prague.

The girl must have been about ten, young enough to be excited by the presents the Lufthansa cabin crew gave her, but too old to be overawed by the experience of flying or scared by the noises the plane made.  That wonderful mixture of streetwise savvy and wide-eyed innocence that only kids of a certain age can muster.
The small cushion they’d given her was nice but it paled into insignificance next to the beach ball that the woman in the blue uniform had handed to the girl. But what fun is a deflated beach ball?
The girl looked at her father with the cutest puppy-dog eyes, holding the beach ball out in front of her. You didn’t have to be a genius to work out her expression was begging him to blow up the ball. Time and frequency had obviously made her father immune to the pleading eyes so the girl tried the same trick on her mother and older sister. Both women were also resistant to the little girl’s charms, both shaking their head in an identical manner, passed down from mother to daughter.
The girl’s smile had turned into a pout, her forehead lined with a frown. She hrumphed quietly to herself and then decided that if no one else would help her then she’d do it herself.
To start with it looked like mission impossible, this tiny girl trying to inflate the huge yellow piece of plastic. She blew and blew but there were no noticeable effects, the plastic was still limp and lifeless. It looked like it would take the entire flight to get the ball fully inflated but she didn’t give up; all through take off the plane was filled with the sound of huffing and puffing.
Amazingly all her hard work was paying off, it wasn’t long before the plastic was taking on a ball shape.

A few minutes later there was a little yelp of pleasure.  The girl looked at the fully inflated ball with pride in her eyes and a smile on her face. She’d done it. She hadn’t need them, she could do it on her own. She  enjoyed the smiles  of the cabin staff who walked passed her and the approving glances of the fellow passengers. But then the frown reappeared, replacing the happy eyes. She done all the hard work but what fun is an inflated beach ball on a plane?

Postscript: 
This is based on a real event. Later in the airport I saw the mother with the beachball under her arm letting the air out. It was certainly easy to deflate than it was to inflate.

1 comment:

  1. An infalated balloon is a much better thing than an inflated ego. However, you can't play with an inflated balloon everywhere whereas an inflated ego can be shown off no matter how much space there is:)

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