Thursday, January 24, 2008

When an Airplane Doesn't Fly

Ten years ago, I wrote a memorable newspaper article about a prostituion sting along a highway in Central Florida. The highway hookers carried flashlights and lured men who were driving by, looking for some, um, companionship. An undercover sting nabbed ten men, one of whom was in his 70s and walked with a cane.

My kicker to the story was about how one "customer" asked the undercover hooker for a sex act called an "airplane." No one knew what that meant, but we all had a good laugh. Today in class, I had my students read the story as an example of a short, but amusing tale written on deadline. They figured out what an "airplane" was in about 5 seconds by Googling it. (No Google in 1998). Here it is. (See Definitions 3, 4 or 5)

Let me just say that this act seems quite complicated and involves at least three people. Oh my! Thank God my students are over 18. I had NO idea what it meant!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I imagine you have to pay extra for the airplane.

A world without Google....hard to imagine. How DID we do our jobs?