Header by Rory Midhani
Feature image by shutterstock

Hello sprockets! It’s May, which in consumer goods manufacturing means just one thing: the clock is now ticking to get our production up and running to meet forecasted holiday demand. Between my upcoming travel to factories, A-camp, and summer weekend trips, I have a lot of flight time in my future. I’ve gotten pretty good at sleeping in the air, but sometimes, no matter how practiced you are, you just can’t will yourself into unconsciousness for the entire flight duration.

Don’t worry; I’ve got this. Here are 25 nerdy and/or gay things you can think about to help pass the time on a plane.

1. Estimate the volume (length x width x height) allotted to coach class on your flight.
2. Estimate the volume (length x width x height) allotted to business and first class on your flight.
3. If all of the free space in coach class was suddenly filled with cat-shaped marshmallows, and all of the free space in business and first class was suddenly filled with rubber snakes, what sort of trade economy would result if you crash landed on a desert island? What would your useful skills be?
4. Download and play some tap games on your phone.
5. Research the rationale behind airlines requiring passengers to turn off their cell phones. Does this make sense from a systems perspective? Why or why not?
6. Watch a movie about outer space.
7. Look out the plane window for repeating patterns in the landscape below. How much is due to human intervention? How much is simply a part of Mother Earth?
8. Draw a map in your travel journal.
9. Read a f*cking book.
10. Reflect: which of the fourteen people you sit next to on airplanes are you sitting next to today?
11. Recreate Bernoulli’s principle with your napkin and now-empty miniature wine bottle.
12. Have an in-flight Carol breakdown.
13. Draw a physical redesign of the plane you’re riding to be more accommodating for disabled folks.
14. Write up a systems redesign to make air travel (from ticketing all the way through to baggage collection) more accommodating for disabled folks.
15. Calculate how many “free” airline snacks you would need to eat to break even on the cost of your plane ticket.
16. Read Lab Girl.
17. Watch Hidden Figures.
18. Challenge: the plane you’re on has been rerouted to LAX, where you will be deposited in two hours with no suitcase or phone; all you have is a dream, a cardigan and a water bottle. What do you do next?
19. Download and play some airplane boredom survival apps.
20. Memorize 100 digits of pi.
21. Reflect: under what circumstances would you accept or extend an invitation to join the mile high club? Hot air balloons count.
22. Redesign airport security to eliminate “security theater” and a requirement for strangers to make assumptions about body parts based gender presentation. What improvements can you come up with?
23. Remember that time Leisha Hailey got kicked off a plane for kissing her girlfriend? Compare and contrast with today’s cultural climate. Bonus: consider the bullshit articles your Facebook friends shared following the recent United incident. Does this change your answer?
24. How many people on your flight do you think currently identify as queer?
25. If all of the “straight” women on the flight got a good long look at your hair, how many do you think would identify as queer then?

Notes From A Queer Engineer is a recurring column with an expected periodicity of 14 days. The subject matter may not be explicitly queer, but the industrial engineer writing it sure is. This is a peek at the notes she’s been doodling in the margins.

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