I almost always ignore the introductory information when flying. I have heard about the seat belt thing, the floatie thing that you must use in case of a water landing, the raft that comes down and the oxygen mask.
However, this time I decided to listen and fascinating discoveries danced into my aging brain. (I just read a book on using active verbs).
First of all, the vests are not reversible. You can put them on upside down . . which is marginally OK if you can use your oxygen mask to help you breath while your head is underwater and your legs are sticking up out of the water. This is not a pleasant thought for me because it would allow me to see the sharks before, and during the time, they were ripping me from limb to precious limb.
Now I know about the technique of punching the shark in the nose if he decides to bite you. Of course, if you miss the nose you are likely to be swallowed whole leaving only a yellow vest to mark your final, fearful but combative moments.
If I get the vest on right, I would be able to see how many people actually listened to the advice of the stewards by counting the number of legs, dividing by two, and subtracting from the total number of floatie toys that actually got deployed.
The others that didn’t make it out of the fuselage are being ignored for this count because they obviously didn’t follow the lights on the flooring . . to the exit portal and probable certain death by drowning or being torn apart by multitudes of ravenous, sharp-toothed, 2000 pound monsters. They and their floatie toys ended up in Webster’s dictionary under the entry ‘Horrible Watery Deaths’.
Now, if the count of legs is an odd number, I am going to add one . . I think it is safe to assume that the first leg was lost in a failed attempt at kicking a hungry, but now satiated, predator on the nose.
Yep, I knew I shouldn’t have listen to the steward.