What's the Deal With Airplanes? A Guide From a Man Who Was On Two of Them Recently

If there is one national mystery we have not yet gotten to the bottom of yet, it is planes: What's up with them? They're so large, and yet they fly. It's a shady business. But Business Insider's Henry Blodget, the internet's greatest troll-savant and self-taught expert in anti-Semitism, has been on a few of them (specifically, two) lately, and he knows some things about planes.

We now present to you a guide to the deal with airplanes, courtesy of Henry Blodget. This is what's happening up there.

1. Huge-ass wings: The secret to flying. Our expert explains:

   See? Now the wing's holding the plane up. And all that weight has bent the wing-tip up. (Sort of. Really, it's the lift the wing is creating that is lifting the wing tip up).

2. Pillows: Sometimes unwrapped. Sometimes hairy. Usually free:
   

   I got a free pillow.

   Fig 1.: Hair on pillow.

3. Electric outlets: Sometimes available. Sometimes, not available. Previously, just unavailable!:

   (Back in the 1990s, when I lived at 35,000 feet, they didn't have plugs. You had 2 hours to work. Then you were done.)

4. Space: Not a lot of it. Other times, oceans of it. What is to be done when there is not enough space?

   You can shift your knees left and invade your neighbor's space.

   Or?

   Or you can shift them right and try to squeeze them between the next seat up and the fuselage.

   Or??

   Or you can try the "knee up" technique.

5. Food: Available. Specifically, there is pasta:

   I'm not going to say it was the best pasta I've ever eaten, but it certainly wasn't the worst.

   Tortellini in cheese sauce.

   With some tomato sauce, too.

   And not-terrible steamed broccoli.

   Bottom line, it was totally fine food.

   I was hungry

   (no breakfast).

   Fig. 2: Certainly not the worst pasta Henry Blodget has ever eaten.

6. Seats: They're what you sit in. Also, though, they're inscrutable:

   See all those buttons? They all drive parts of the seat. You'll be halfway across the North Atlantic before you get the hang of it.

7. Creepy men taking creepshots of you while you sleep: Something to fear.
8. Nuts: Delicious. You can always count on nuts. Nuts and planes are like peas and carrots. Except for these nuts:

   Time to chow down on some nuts. (Too sweet—some strange yogurty coating on the cashews).

9. Henry Blodget's nuts: Present. Very, very present. Too present. So present that you should promptly cancel all future plans for flying.
   Fig. 3: Henry Blodget's nuts.

Nothing can be done to explain the deal with Henry Blodget.

Photos via Business Insider. GIF by Max Read.