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The thrilling realm of night freight is, for some odd reason, rife with talk of genitalia. It may have been simply a personality quirk shared by the cargo cowboys (and girls, for I was no exception) with whom I worked or perhaps there is something in the crisp night air laced with the delicate fragrance of jet fuel that makes one suddenly fluent in all things associated with Captain Winkie. Of course, it doesn’t help that aviation is inundated with sexually suggestive terminology such as “joystick,” and that aircraft in general, and Learjets in particular, are more than vaguely phallic in appearance. I’m positive that H.R. would have been horrified to learn that not only did merely saying the word “cockpit” more often than not trigger licentious snickers from some of more adolescent of us, it was also unanimously decided that a flight deck occupied by two female pilots was more appropriately referred to as a “box office.”
Heat-seeking Love Missile?
As it is readily apparent to anyone who has spent more than a fraction of a second in my company that I have a juvenile sense of humor, an extensive vocabulary of expletives and am extremely difficult to offend, I was quickly accepted into the “boy’s club” and awarded all the perks enjoyed therein including an honorary john thomas complete with a set of manjigglies. Apparently, the stature of my pseudo-schlong was fairly respectable, even among those with whom I did not work. Once, as I fiercely analyzed the pixelated bright red and yellow splattered weather radar and contemplated a reasonably safe path from Omaha to Kansas City in my Baron, another pilot asked if my company simply issued balls to us after we successfully completed training. My response? “Yes. Big brass ones. Can’t you hear them scraping on the floor when I walk?”
One of the most memorable practical jokes in which I participated involved a six foot inflatable punching weenie called “Captain Pecker the Party Wrecker” which my captain and I hand-delivered to a co-worker in retaliation for some portraits of a baloney pony he had drunkenly scrawled on another colleague’s garage wall. My contribution to this escapade included shopping for the immense super secret agent hosepipe, blowing it up while enroute to St. Paul to present it to it’s ultimate beneficiary, and letting the recipient know that we had a really big package waiting for him in the plane. The memory of my friend’s embarrassed attempt to hastily deflate the giant tally-whacker by bending it in half still reduces me to childish giggles.
Fortunately for me, H.R. was never informed of my propensity for one-eyed trouser snake jokes. On the other hand, I’ve come to the conclusion that the virtual chubby bestowed upon me as a fully vetted member of the Freight Dog Boy’s Club must be the reason I keep receiving all those unsolicited emails for Viagra.