Basil’s arrived in Washington, DC awaiting his connection to Savannah, Georgia. While waiting he called me to update me on the flight.

After our little chat earlier in the day, where I asked Basil to cool his jets just a touch, he decide to buy some books at the Chicago airport. Great news! He mumbled something about “the mile high club” but I didn’t quite hear him and I asked him which books he’d bought.

Oddly, he bought 30 books (apparently thinking he’s got an unlimited expense account.) I won’t list all of them, but some were particularly interesting:

• Savannah Breeze — Basil claims he thought this was a travel guide. It’s not. It’s a fictional story about BeBe Loudermilk attracting the wrong type of man. Sounds almost like a romance novel to me, which Basil will deny he reads, but we know the truth.
• Frommer’s Portable Savannah — Ok, now he’s on the right track, something he may actually be able to use.
• Weird Georgia — Sounds right up his alley.

I finally got around to asking Basil why he bought so many books. Basil told me while sitting at the airport, enjoying a cup of joe and a veggie sandwich (he doesn’t eat meat), he overheard two people whispering about the “mile high club.” They were both holding books in front of their faces, giggling into them in hushed voices. He could hear them say things like, “it’s so fun,” and, “ooh, lots and lots of fun,” and “do it as much as we can,” and “better than reading some dull magazine.”

With my previous instructions to get down to the business of touring a bit, and what he heard from those two people, he assumed they were talking about reading books. They were holding books. They mentioned dull magazines, so Basil put two-and-two together…voila. The mile high club.

So he promptly bought as many books as he could carry and brought them onboard. That’s when the trouble started.

Shortly after take-off, Basil started asking those around him in a rather loud voice, “Anyone want to join the mile high club? There’s more than enough here for everyone!” At first he was ignored, but Basil wouldn’t be deterred. He told me that he started pointing (as much as a donkey can possibly point) frantically towards the bag of books below his seat. Nearby passengers thought he was pointing to something else.

Suffice it to say, the flight attendants asked Basil to go sit in the back of the plane, and they wouldn’t listen to his explanations. Basil also told me that a few rather…shall we say…robust ladies winked feverishly at him the whole way down the aisle as he was being promptly escorted to a safer location.

I chose not to explain the mile high club to Basil. I think it’s better that he’s left in the dark. Let’s hope he got on the plane to Savannah and arrives there safely.
(Related Tags: mile high club, cheap flights, georgia, savannah, photography books)