Mitch's Stellar Advice

Mitchell Jones gave me some great travelling advice in a letter. This advice served me well throughout my flight - for example, when confronted with the choice of pancakes or omelette for breakfast, I immediately went for the pancakes - because I knew that I should avoid egg at all costs lest I get sick. Similarly, my cup was rarely empty of Coke (the sweeter Canadian type), and my screen was filled with various movies and television shows at all the pivotal points where I wasn't reading letters or books.

But perhaps the best advice came after my initial flight. I got a linking flight to Edmonton in Canada, which lasted only an hour. I was sitting next to a nice looking lass, and I asked her where she was from and the like when we first got on the plane - polite chit-chat, you know the sort. Then we sat there for the next fifty minutes in silence, listening to our iPods/sleeping.

As we were making our descent and about to hit the runway, I suddenly remembered Mitchell's final piece of stellar advice! He suggested that if I find myself in such a situation that I'm sitting next to a hottie, I should break the ice with the following:

A man goes to the dentist and says "Doctor, help, I think I'm a moth!"

The dentist replies "Why did you come to the dentist's then?"

Then the man shrugged and said "The light was on"

So with only a moment's hesitation, I began a new conversation that went something like the following:
Me: "Do you mind if I ask you a favour?"
Her: "Sure, go ahead"
Me: "Can I try this joke out on you?"
Her: *awkward looking smile* "Go for it"

And so I told her the moth joke, with a strong, fairly deadpan delivery that effectively conveyed the punchline. And she laughed. I'm serious, she actually laughed. So I said "You think it's a keeper?" and she said "Yeah, definitely" and then we kinda sat in mostly silence with a few short conversations for the remainder of the trip.

Never did catch her name though.

Moral of the story? Listen to Mitchell - he's a good bloke.