The most basic thing a person can do is complain about airplane food. You think it’s gross? Grow up. It’s supposed to be. Airplane food is perfect in its grotesqueness. Any man who’d refuse to eat it won’t go down on you. It’s a fact! Speaking of: Scientists studied happiness and found it’s all anticipation. (Cocaine-fueled lab rats agree, it’s about expecting the blow.) When getting on a packed flight, what’s your salvation? The delayed gratification of the food trolley. The sound of the wheels squeaking down the aisle – mixed with screams from squashed feet – makes you salivate. It’s ceremony, church communion! Your savior, the flight attendant, meets your gaze. She parks the trolley by your seat, slamming into your elbow. You grimace, as she flips her clip-in ponytail to the side and smiles, revealing lipstick-smeared teeth. Through a thick accent, suited for Anora, she asks,

“Chicken or pasta?” “Chicken.”
“We’re all out of chicken.”
“Ok, then, pasta.”
“Great choice.”

The lava-hot tray is set before you. Steam rises and sears your skin as you peel the aluminum cover, revealing mutilated ingredients, coming together to perform food-drag. Meal cosplay. To your left and right, everyone eats the same. Scientists also found that, the fewer choices you have, the happier you are. Just consider how much better dating was, back when your only options were the town drunk, the mailman, and your cousin ... Now you’re sharing rations with your comrades. It’s romantic. Don’t kill the shared psychosis. Smuggling outside food on the plane is evil. Airplane food is the great equalizer, like traffic. Polluting the recycled air with [private] French-fry odor is like pissing in a public pool.

Dig in! Bread and cheese first. Save the butter for the main dish; she’s dry, needs foreplay. While you munch defrosted dairy and starch, the yellow fat melts into bloated penne, mystery-sauced. Lift the salad’s plastic lid only to salvage the single cherry tomato. It’s a secret garden, meant aesthetically only. While you swallow bleached pasta, consider how close you are to death. This may be your last meal. You’re lucky if you survive to eat the best part, dessert, a brown paste loaded with enough calories to get you through a few days on a desert island were the plane to crash. Save the crackers in their plastic wrap- ping, you’ll need them later, to help digest all that wine. You did order wine, right? The safest alcoholic option on board. Twist-off red which will pair well with that Xanax you stole from your roommate. She really needs it; she’s going through a lot ... but flying coach from LA to Milan is no piece of cake. —


— This text appears, along with morsels by Aleksander Baron, Biz Sherbert, Chris Fite-Wassilak, Adina Glickstein, Madeline Cash & Christopher Comfort, and Jago Rackham, in full our Spring 2025 print magazine, Spike #83 – Food. Copies are selling like hot cakes in our online shop —