David Slack
Asks what a voter might have in common with an air traveller caught short at 30,000 feet.
Ayear ago I ran into Jon Stephenson in a computer store and we had a long chat. He told me he was buying two laptops: one for himself and one for Nicky Hager, for some highly sensitive work they were doing.
It never occurred to me to join the dots and see a book coming about a possible war crime. This is why people other than me have the job of making the front page of this newspaper. I, on the other hand, come up with my material by talking to the people at the next table when I go out for dinner.
At a cafe in Devonport this week an American couple, visitors to our country, were showing their hosts an Air New Zealand sick bag.
Let me say this now: if you haven’t finished your toast or your eggs benedict, you should maybe come back to this later. It contains references to – and incidents of – the wretched act of hurling. Puking. Spewing. Losing your lunch.
The Air New Zealand sickbag has for years and years been something I thought I was familiar with. But now I find I didn’t know the half of it. What I discovered, thanks to the American tourists, is that it has been made over. I had never stopped to read all the words on the bag because why would you?
But these people had, and it made them laugh. So when they got off the plane they took one with them to share with friends. The Air New Zealand sickbag is covered in words saying the same thing in many different languages: ‘‘feeling unwell’’ and then ‘‘ana ahau’’, ‘‘braak’’, ‘‘vomi’’, and so on. So far so multilingual and helpful.
But then at the bottom, the copywriters at Air New Zealand have added some flair. It reads: However you say it, it all comes out the same. And then in smaller type: If affected by motion sickness, use this bag and not your carry-on.
I had a flight the next day so I grabbed one, too, and shared it with the office. After we’d all laughed and said ‘‘that’s good marketing’’, one of my colleagues said: ‘‘Did you know most women who are sick on planes do it into their handbag?’’
‘‘They what now?’’ we asked, and Emma told us her story.
She was flying from Sydney to Brisbane after a frantic day at work. All she had managed to grab to eat all day was a packet of Burger Rings and a pint of cider. As the plane climbed steeply into the sky she was suddenly feeling a bit off. She felt herself growing clammy and hot.
Brisbane’s not far, she said to herself, I’ll be good. But then the plane started its descent and, she thought to herself: I’m really not good. She said, ‘‘it came down and my stomach stayed up there’’. Suddenly, she was at that moment where your body turns against you. She lunged for the sickbag but there was no beating the rising tide. She twisted to the side of the seat ‘‘and I just spewed right down into the corner, bright orange Burger Rings’’.
The guy sitting next to her had at the start of flight pulled out the tray table and planted his face on it and stayed slumped there, lifeless. Now he was all alive and indignant and he stabbed the call button.
The stewardess appeared, saw the Burger Rings and asked Emma if she had used the sickbag. No, Emma told her, she couldn’t grab it in time. ‘‘Well is your handbag alright’’ the stewardess asked her. ‘‘My handbag? Why do you ask’’ said Emma. Because something like 80 per cent of women spew into their handbag, the stewardess told her.
Eighty per cent! Perhaps this is where we find an insight into human behaviour that helps to explain the inexplicable.
‘‘How could a person vote for Brexit?’’ people ask. ‘‘How could anyone vote for a man so manifestly unsuited to the presidency?’’ others wonder.
Perhaps the answer lies here, in the wretchedness of a rising gorge, in the moment when you find yourself stricken with a sense of pressing urgency and an absence of good choices. Perhaps voters have simply been saying: there is no sick bag, I’m going to have to use my carry on.
The Air New Zealand sickbag has for years and years been something I thought I was familiar with.