Gut Feelings
Written by David Hundeyin
The pilot helpfully informs us that we are aboard a KLM Fokker 70 aircraft flying from Schipol airport in Amsterdam to Humberside Airport in…err…East Yorkshire, ahem.
I wonder why he did not say “Hull”.
A flight attendant pokes his nose into my line of sight, interrupting my window seat view of the rather unimpressive English channel. He is smiling in the way that all flight attendants are seemingly contractually obliged to. That not-at-all-creepy leer which tells you Hey, let’s be friends! I don’t even know your name, I don’t care about you, and I probably hate the way your nostrils flare. But let’s be friends! See, look I impaled this frog here so I could show you its liver. Would you like to taste it?
I cast a cautious eye over the catering trolley, looking for something which might calm the nuclear reaction currently taking place in my gut. I made the potentially fatal error of having the in-flight meal on the flight from Lagos to Schipol. It seems that I have overestimated my body’s ability to adapt from a standard West African diet to the meat-and-potato fare which everyone tells me is what is predominantly on offer in northern Europe. I settle for a fairy cake and a bottle of water.
As I open the cake packaging, I notice that there is a smiley logo on it. It looks a bit like this:
I carefully put the cake down, trying not to look at the evil grin and I take a few gulps of water.
Big mistake.
Simba and Mufasa begin growling anew.*
*BEING THE RATHER SOCIABLE FELLOW THAT I AM, I HAVE TAKEN TO NAMING MY STOMACH GROWLS. THE REGULAR ONE ON THE LEFT IS CALLED SIMBA, WHILE THE EXTRA LOUD ONE ON THE RIGHT IS HIS FATHER MUFASA. I TEND TO HAVE A SOMEWHAT BAROQUE SENSE OF HUMOUR.
I shift uneasily in my seat, crossing my right leg over my left. It occurs to me that this is how women tend to sit down regardless of whether or not someone is sat opposite, and I wonder what the reason for this is. Is it that a woman has a primal fear of seeing her vagina shoot out from between her legs and so the legs must be kept firmly crossed to keep the offending organ imprisoned? Does a vagina have feelings? Does is sometimes wish it were free?
I am about to start thinking along this promising line of philosophical inquiry when I notice Hans* still gazing at me intently.
*HANS, AS YOU MAY HAVE GATHERED, IS THE EVIL CAKE SMILEY. I CHOSE THIS NAME BECAUSE HE REMINDS ME OF A GERMAN MORALITY TALE FROM ‘THE BROTHERS GRIMM,’ WHICH I USED TO READ IN MY CHILDHOOD. GERMAN FAIRY TALES ARE VERY, WELL…GERMAN.
Cabbage, Potatoes and…Helicopters?
I carefully slide the cake into the seat pocket and sigh as Mufasa lets out an encore.
We are now flying over England and my first impression is Where the heck are all the buildings? For as far as the eye can see, I detect only fields, animals, grass and hills.
The seat belt light comes on.
Really?
Where is the airport? Or are we attempting to land in rural marshland? Who gave this pilot African remote control? Are my village people really this powerful? Or is the handwork of Hans?*
*IN FAIRNESS, ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, IT VERY WELL MIGHT HAVE BEEN.
Unexpectedly, after variously entreating Hans* and all the native and colonial gods I know of, a tiny little runway comes into view, and the aircraft lands normally enough.
*I THINK IT ONLY RATIONAL AND SENSIBLE TO COUNT HANS AS A POTENTIAL CAUSE OF SALVATION. IF HE TRULY HAS THE EVIL POWER TO CAUSE A MISHAP, HE ALSO HAS THE POWER TO RECTIFY IT. I AM A VERY LOGICAL PERSON, AS YOU WILL SEE.
I am presented with a problem after clearing immigration and customs. For some cock-a-mie reason, I am not allowed to leave any of my suitcases unattended even for a minute, but I need to use the payphone. I am forced to wheel half a dozen bursting suitcases filled with £380 worth of excess baggage across the lobby so that I can call the Hull Uni arrival service to come get me. Some bloke from airport security informs me cheerfully that any unattended bag will be taken away and blown up. This is meant to combat terrorism apparently. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why any self-respecting terrorist would leave the humongous target that is Schipol Airport and choose this little cabbage-and-potato airfield to bomb.
After waiting outside for umpteen minutes while a nearby helicopter buffets me with gale-force winds, the arrival service arrives. I am distinctly disappointed at what it turns out to be. I had imagined a coach filled with smiling faces beaming at me, motioning me welcome into the fantastic new world of East Yorkshire higher education. “Come,” they would say, smiling unrealistically, “Step into your destiny, Dario”.
It turns out to be a U-Drive van piloted by this bloke who looks like he’s just got off one of these cabbage fields, pulled off his farm boots and jumped into the van. In fact as I later discover, this is not far from the truth.
The so-called, “Humberside Airport, Hull” turns out to be 15 miles away from Hull and being the cheapskate he is, he wants to go through Goole to avoid using the Humber bridge and paying the £1.80 toll. I promise to pay him this amount so he can use the bridge instead. It’s not me they will kidnap in this potato farm village. After one year at Igbinedion University?
You Speekah Engreesh?
He drops me off and says he’ll be back for the money but he’s got to be off to Manchester to collect another person. I am then led into the “arrival office”, which is basically a room with computers, telephones and student volunteers who try their best to make you feel welcome by smiling very hard and repeatedly saying “Speaky English? *pointless hand-mouth motions which apparently enforce the question* You alright? Had a good trip?”
I realise in horror that in the baggage-wheeling confusion, I have managed to forget my shoulder bag at the airport; in it are my passport, my letter of admission, all my original certificates and £5,600 in cash. I am struck with a vision of the bloke from the airport smiling maliciously and parroting “All unattended luggage will be taken away and blown up.”
At this point, a giant, mega fart is building up. After the armed conflict between the in-flight meal and my in-house lion kings and now this, my inner constitution is starting to rebel. I honestly will slap the next person who smiles inanely at me and asks if I speeky Engrish.
A call is quickly put through to Humberside Airport to halt any planned baggage-exploding activity in the event that this Nigerian man’s entire future be napalmed into oblivion. To my intense relief, they confirm that they have possession of the bag and its contents and that it has not been destroyed. A driver is dispatched to pick up the bag.
I perch precariously at the edge of the sofa chair and quietly let out an emotional fart. At this point it is important to note that I am in a totally new environment; I know no one, I don’t want to go outside, I am still recovering from the mini heart attack from a few moments ago, and being the ultimate he-man that I am, asking for the bathroom is so not cool in a room full of girls. I am also positioned in front of an open window so my calculation is that the sulphurous mixture of methane, nitrogen and carbon dioxide at my body temperature of 37.5 degrees Celsius should find its way up and out of the window while cooler fresh air will find its way in to replace it.*
*AGAIN, I AM A LOGICAL MAN.
But my calculation is wrong! Alas, KLM beef and potato waste gas does not care for Newton’s laws. The toxic mixture swirls around me like my very own private sulphur tunnel cloud. Before the rest of the room has a chance to note the altered internal air composition, I slip out like a ninja and find my way to what looks like a quiet, deserted spot. The rest of the gas compound finds its way out noisily and I lean against a tree and sigh in relief.
At that point, laughter erupts from the other side of the wide tree trunk. I peep around cautiously and realise that I have very pointedly and audibly relieved myself right behind a group of student volunteers. They spot me peeping and wild applause ensues. They surround me in a chorus of mirth and fart-related puns and wisecracks. One of them is a girl I know from Oxbridge, a senior whom I had an unresolved crush on.
I make one last entreaty to the congregation of heavenly entities and gods to please block her memory from recollecting my face. Please let her not-
“Dario!” she says.
What a wonderful f++++ng day this is.
