By David Grant

To ring in the New Year, my wife Beth and friends Terence and Olya went to Dublin. Leading up to the trip Terence expressed his concern over the overnight flight and the need to sleep on a plane. Thankfully he was unable to sleep, leading to one of the greatest travel pranks of all time.
THURSDAY Night
“I’m bombed” says Terence from an airport bar in Philly. Terence and Olga spent approximately seven hours at the airport. It is assumed five of those were spent in the bar – leading to Terence stealing a bottle of Jack Daniels from the duty free shop. The purpose of this public drunkenness was to forcefully overcome his fear of sleeping in long metal objects. Some would say there is a Freudian response to this, but he insists it only extends to planes.
MEANWHILE…
Beth and I are at Gallagher’s restaurant inside beautiful Newark Liberty Airport, enjoying excellent food and awful service that includes a glass of red wine being dumped on a customer and little flies circling all around the stain. One bartender upsets Beth to the point where she was almost unable to finish her glass of wine. Almost.
FRIDAY
On the plane Beth and I got some semi-drunk sleep, as did Olga on their connection flight from Philadelphia to Manchester. Wide awake, Terence watched five movies. Our flight from Newark arrived in Dublin on time. We were at the great O’Callaghan Davenport by 10:30am, checked in and ready to see the sites.


Just hearing the ‘S’ word conjures up images in my mind of “Jaws”, the 1975 Hollywood blockbuster that kept me out of the water for months. As if on the same wave-length, Bornovski continues: