—or—
“That’s One Way to Handle Excess Baggage!”
Once upon a time in the magical land of Gate 47, amidst the symphony of roaring engines, yelling supervisors, and missing luggage tags, there lived a ramp rat with a short fuse and an even shorter attention span. His name? THE BUGLE — because when he talks, everyone wishes they had noise-cancelling headsets.
Now, The Bugle’s arch-nemesis wasn’t a rival airline, nor the vending machine that never gave change — it was his fellow station attendant: Soup Bone. Why the name? No one’s sure, but rumors say his brain rattles when he shakes his head.
Soup Bone was a walking sound machine. Whether he was jabbering about hockey scores, humming off-key, or narrating every step of the bag-loading process like a low-budget nature documentary, he could wear out even the most seasoned earplugs.
One glorious Tuesday, after the third hour of hearing “Did you know this 737 uses CFM56 engines?” on repeat, The Bugle finally snapped. His eyelid twitched. His ear protection melted. His inner voice screamed, “NO MORE!”
Like a man possessed by the ghost of Ground Crews Past, The Bugle stormed into the central ready room, grabbed Soup Bone by the collar of his fluorescent vest, and — with all the grace of a WWE move gone wrong — dragged him toward the nearest LD3 container.
“HEY! What are you doing?!” shrieked Soup Bone.
But The Bugle was in a zone. He flung Soup Bone into the container like a duffel bag full of wet uniforms, slammed the door shut, and began whistling “Flight of the Valkyries” while strapping the container onto a loader.
Inside, Soup Bone was kicking and hollering like a toddler at baggage claim, while The Bugle nonchalantly drove him to the South Hold, a mystical place known mostly for its tumbleweeds and forgotten pushbacks.
Once parked, The Bugle tilted the loader with a grin — and Soup Bone, container and all, slid off the edge like a bowling ball in a windstorm. The lid flung open, and out rolled Soup Bone onto the hot tarmac, dazed, confused, and slightly insulted.
No aircraft. No audience. Just him and a lonely orange cone.
As The Bugle strutted away chuckling like a villain in an after-school special, Soup Bone sat there, his pride dented and his radio tangled around his neck.
To this day, veterans of the ramp still whisper about the time The Bugle declared war on background noise… and won.
COMING NEXT ISSUE:
“Soup Bone’s Revenge: The Day The Ready Room Was Filled With Crickets… Literally.”
