Red Eye MacGyver

In an attempt to improve the quality of our cross-country flight experience, I decided to book Stellan and I on a red-eye flight for the return trip. It was a big gamble: either he would sleep the whole time, or he wouldn't. I felt a pretty big responsibility, since I was gambling with several hundred people's sanity.

I'm pleased to say that he did try to sleep the whole flight. That is much better than a day time flight, which he generally tries to stay awake for the whole flight. However, there was a technical glitch on the plane that ended up driving everyone crazy anyway, even though Stellan wasn't keeping them awake.

This was one of those new-fangled planes with touchscreens on the back of every seat. These touch screens offer on-demand viewing as well as other on board entertainment. They also control the overhead lights and the call buttons. Unfortunately, the screens were all broken. They just flashed through a looping slideshow of Delta propaganda. Even more unfortunately, Stellan's overhead light was on when we boarded, and we couldn't turn it off.

Stellan did manage to sleep most of the flight, despite the spotlight shining in his face. I, however, was more than annoyed with it, because it spilled onto my face quite a bit as well. In addition, when I gave up on sleep and tried to read, I realized that all the overhead lights that were on would turn off intermitently for an indeterminate amount of time before turning on again. So I took a close look at the lights and took a mental inventory of the items in the diaper bag. I quickly realized that a playing card would be just the right size to fit in the panel and cover the bulb.

Sure enough, it was perfect. As I was putting my card in and passing another to the man sitting behind me, the flight attendant passing out beverages to a very cranky plane full of people noticed and asked if she might borrow a few cards for anyone interested. I quickly agreed and started to pull out the deck, but the other crankier flight attendant got wind of it and decided it was a health risk as the bulbs were hot and people might burn themselves installing the cards.

So I reluctantly removed mine and the man behind me handed his back. As I sat there in the bright lights, I did something a little uncharacteristic. I'm generally pretty respectful of authority, particularly when I feel bad for authorities who are dealing with situations beyond their control. But since I hadn't burned my fingers and neither had the guy behind me, I waited until the flight attendants passed us by and put my card back in. I handed one to the man behind me and winked; he accepted gratefully and silently.

I spent the rest of the flight in darkness and relative sanity. Stellan and I returned very tired but glad to be home.