Are You Gay?

My brother-in-law works for the airlines and forwarded me this great little story that appeared in The New York Times. It's too good to be true, and yet, it is(and it's not. Oh well.):

Don't Fly Me

It has been reported that an employee for Ansett Australia (Airlines), who happened to have the last name of Gay, got on a plane recently using the company's "Free Flight" offer for staff. However, when Mr. Gay decided to take his seat, he found it being occupied by a fare paying passenger.

So, not to make a fuss, he simply chose another seat. Unknown to Mr.Gay, another Ansett flight at the airport experienced mechanical problems. The passengers of this flight were being re-routed to various other airplanes. A few were put on Mr. Gay's flight and anyone who was holding a "free" ticket was being "bumped"/ Ansett officials, armed with a list of these "freebee" ticket holders, boarded the plane, as is the practice, to remove them in favour of fare paying passengers. Of course Mr. Gay was not sitting in his assigned seat as you may remember. So when the Ticket Agent approached the seat where Mr. Gay was supposed to be sitting, she asked a startled customer "Are you gay?" the man, shyly nodded that he was, at which point she demanded: "Then you have to get off the plane." Mr. Gay, overhearing what the Agent had said, tried to clear up the situation: "You've got the wrong man, I'm Gay!". This caused an angry third passenger to yell: "Hell! I'm gay too! They can't kick us all off!" Confusion reined as more and more passengers began yelling that Ansett had no right to remove gays from their flights.
They'll come for us Mormons next. Just you watch and see.

Comments

Anonymous said…
ROFL!
Becky said…
What a great way to start my day!
Anonymous said…
That is too funny!! Thank you for entertaining me for the past two weeks at work. The mortgage business is very slow right now and I have read all of your previous posts while sitting at my desk pretending to be working. I love we do your writing and feel have a few things in common, except you live in sunny California and I am stuck here in Wisconsin having to listen to everyone on the radio, news and everyone else talk about the return of Brett Farve and what is going to happen, oh my, I just can't wait to hear the latest on that!!!
bill said…
Looks like a pure joke to me. You won't find that on the nytimes.com website.

Google for [ "Mr. Gay" Ansett site:nytimes.com ]
Sarah said…
Darn you fact-checkers! Bill, why you gotta go and ruin my irresponsible reporting fun? But really, I had a feeling it was a joke when I read it because it's not at all in the style of a New York Times article. But still - good stuff I say!
MegaPPod said…
Wow. The possibilities with that joke are endless - black, white, young, auld. Although not true, still hysterical!
Nancy Sabina said…
Totally hysterical - even if it is totally false!
Colleen said…
That's awesome. I'm so sad it's not true.
Jessica G. said…
*snickering*
flip flop mama said…
That was hilarious!
Blogger said…
That was a very cute story! ;)

Bella:)
Redhead said…
I'm the "brother-in-law" who submitted the dubious story. It does sound suspect, but don't be too quick to discount it. It apparently did appear in the NY Times as you can see from this link showing an image of the clipping:

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/forums/viewthread/7417/

It probably didn't come up the NY Times website search because it is at least 6 yrs old. How do I know? Ansett Airlines ceased operations in 2002.

I'm definitely not saying this amusing story actually happened, but so far I haven't seen anything to definitively disprove it either. Hoax or not...pretty darn funny.
Anonymous said…
Sorry Redhead, Snopes says it isn't true:

http://www.snopes.com/travel/airline/obnoxious.asp

But it's still funny nonetheless!
Hey I'll take a good laugh any day!
Whether it is fact of fiction does not determine the endorphines levels... Keep up the good work.
I found you through my niece who is also a great entertainer! She lives in Quenn Creek and I live in Show Low, Arizona. Thanks again.
Anonymous said…

Thank
author, fellow author.
I really enjoyed this article.
The author, I beseech you write more

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