Did you order a special meal, sir?

Ever since I was a child, airplanes have fascinated me. Not just because they're basically fucking massive objects hanging in the sky - which, despite all the physics I studied at university, still has a magical feel to me - but also because I once read that there are so many airplanes cruising around our globe that it would be impossible to get them all on the ground in case of an emergency. Which is essentially the reason why there is no such thing as National Pilot's Day.

I guess this remarkable fact also inspired Michel Lotito to adopt his rather unconventional lifestyle, when he realized - just like all dedicated vegans, people deliberately not owing a car and alcohol addicts avoiding flambé pancakes - that some actions, how insubstantial as they may seem to the outer world, can make a difference. Because this French entertainer, who was born in 1950 and died in 2007 of (surprisingly) natural causes, was famous for devouring indigestible objects. And we're not talking about swallowing the occasional Lego brick. We've all been there, done that, bought the t-shirt and liked the Facebook page - right? This guy actually disassembled bicycles, shopping carts and televisions, and consumed 1 kilogram of plastic, metal, rubber or other materials per day.

His pièce de résistance however, and I suppose we can take this quite literally in the present context, was a Cessna 150 (see picture above). Some people can't even sit in an airplane without getting sick, let alone eat an airplane? The contents of the mini-bar - yes, no problem, I could even handle a Boeing then - but two seats, an engine, three wheels and more than 500 kilograms of erhm... airplane? Not really. At least this type of planes doesn't come with a toilet, I hope.

- Excuse me Mister Lotito, did you order a special meal?

- Not really (crunch...crunch), I can help myself.

But let us picture a world in which this were rather common human behaviour (warning! airplanes may contain nuts): getting all airplanes on the ground in case of a disaster wouldn't be that big of a problem, now would it? One could choose to let airplanes crash randomly into the outskirts of densely populated areas (not forgetting the occasional C-130 military transport aircraft in Somalia) and count on the local Lotito's to get rid of the wreckage, dancing around the bonfire and munching themselves through the night. Even from our couches it would look better: instead of staring appallingly at disaster footage, it would rather feel like watching a TV cooking show (the exact opposite of Hell's Kitchen and the likes thereof, quoi)...

"Isn't that too much of a stretch", you say?

Not really. Unless of course this was only half a question, because I do believe it would be quite a stretch for a stomach. Not to mention the rest of the Sanitary Highway...