The Mile-High Club

Pixie the Pomeranian’s assigned human wanted to join something called the “Mile-High Club”. It isn’t exactly what Pixie expected.

If I thought I was having fun with my last NYC Flash Fiction entry, this one definitely went a little further off my beaten path. The assignment was to write a comedy, taking place in a helicopter, including a playbill in the story. Enjoy!

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Hi there! My name’s Pixie. I’m a four-year-old Pomeranian, and a proud emotional support dog.

The gig’s not bad. I mean, I’m no airport petting dog (a girl can dream!), but my assigned human – Debra – she’s great. She treats me like a queen, giving me only the best treats and getting us special seating at Broadway shows so I can come along. I really can’t complain.

Usually.

But this past weekend, I’m sorry, I love Debra, but I just have to vent about it. It all started with her wanting to join some “Mile-High Club.”

I had gathered that this club involved airplanes and wrestling, based on Debra’s conversations with her boyfriend Logan and the fact that they almost always wrestled right after these conversations. Not that they ever invited me to the matches they held behind Debra’s closed bedroom door. I asked to be invited every time and they just wouldn’t let me! I’m small, but I can hold my own, I swear.

Anyway, back to the story. For various anxiety-related reasons, Debra couldn’t wrestle on an airplane full of people, so she found a workaround: a private helicopter tour of the city. And, because Debra would never go anywhere without me, I was coming along! Yay! A chance to show her how good I was at wrestling!

When the day came, Debra helped me put on my best harness (the pink one with the rhinestones) and matching leash, and Logan drove us to the airport. We made it all the way to the tarmac before the helicopter pilot said I couldn’t go along for the ride.

At that point, I was thinking I might be ok with that – the helicopter was smaller than I expected, and I could smell the sharp green apple scent telling me that this pilot was afraid of dogs. He tried to play it cool, but I know what I smelled, and I didn’t want to be stuck in a small hunk of metal in the air with him and his big ol’ combat boots. I’m tiny, okay? I’ve gotta practice self-care just like Debra.

At Debra’s insistence that I was a service animal (I’m not, I know that, but she always insists) the pilot made a phone call, and I guess it didn’t go his way, because he eventually let me on the helicopter. I tried to stay excited, but my mood was a little ruined by Kicky McBootface with his rotting apple stench up front. Jerk.

Anyway this whole plan of Debra’s was not exactly well thought out. Logan, Debra, and I were sitting alone in seats behind the pilot, which was good, but they had to wear these giant headphones with microphones so they could hear the pilot’s tour, and he could hear anything they said. Debra was determined, though. After take-off, she turned to Logan and strategically placed her hand where he smells best. A clear power-play, I knew it was time to wrestle! I jumped up into Logan’s lap to assert my own dominance, but Debra picked me up, placed me to her side, and wrapped my leash around the leg of her seat. Dang it! I would just have to watch.

Minutes and kisses passed, nothing I hadn’t seen before, but Debra didn’t seem to be getting whatever it was she wanted from Logan’s smelly bits, even when she put his hand under her skirt to assure him that the power play was just in fun, not for real. She glanced towards the pilot, who was droning into the microphone about some historic building, then unbuckled herself and straddled Logan, kissing him the way she did that time after her friend’s wedding. They wrestled so hard that night! It didn’t go that way this time, though. Debra pouted.

Logan couldn’t say anything out loud without the pilot hearing, so he gestured to the space around him and the pilot and I think he mouthed the word “PRESSURE”. I got a little nervous; did I need to be worrying about air pressure in a helicopter?

Debra seemed to think she could fix this air pressure problem. She slid off his lap to the floor, and unzipped his jeans. What was she doing? I thought they were going to wrestle, not bathe each other! I whimpered, and Debra paused to give me a treat from her bag.

By the time I finished eating it, she was back in Logan’s lap. Whether she had won the wrestling match or they were still fighting, I couldn’t tell, but I clearly was still not invited. I was about ready to jump out of the helicopter at this point. Maybe I’d go join air pilot Erbert Derbinsky up in the front and he’d kick me out a window. I started fantasizing about my escape – would a hole in this thing cause an actual air pressure problem? Was it finally time to taste the forbidden chocolate Debra keeps in her bag, now that she’s distracted? Could I worm my leash out a window and let it get sucked up into the rotating blades, taking everyone down with me?

Logan’s panting brought me out of my fantasies – and I think the pilot stopped talking, too. He certainly sat up straighter right before Logan grunted the usual signal that wrestling time was over. Now that I’ve seen it, I have to say, human wrestling is not at all like dog wrestling.

Debra got up to get back in her seat, but her skirt was wet and smelled delicious. She reached into her bag (too late for death by chocolate now) and fished out out a playbill from a show last week, opened it up, and laid it across her seat to sit on. She smiled the rest of the tour.

This Mile-High Club thing hardly seems worth it, but hey, maybe they didn’t do it right. Thanks for listening – I really needed to get that off my chest. I guess sometimes, emotional support animals need support, too.