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AIRLINE MEAL BLUES

So you thought you had good table manners? Well, think again, girlfriend, because no table etiquette will help you cope with those impossible aeroplane meals.

The airlines have got it all wrong. When air stewardesses show you how to make an orderly dash for emergency exits or how to fasten seatbelts, they should also hand out manuals for dignified airborne dining.

As it is, flying has a feeling of sublime unreality. It's a desperate attempt to mimic life on terra firma, but the reality after lift-off is a warped experience. While I can shop through the airline perfume catalogue, watch movies and even use a toilet on a plane efficiently, the one thing I can't do is eat an aeroplane meal without making a fool of myself.

It's about as tricky as parallel parking in Melville on a busy night when everyone's watching. No, in fact, it's worse. The first obstacle starts with that tiny fold-away table. I inevitably pull the table right up close into my body, in the hope that it'll act as a catch-all bib. Unfortunately, pinned in this position, I'm left with no room to practise any kind of grace-saving acrobatics when my drink nose-dives as the plane hits an air-pocket.

Lunch arrives in one of those snugly packed trays manufactured to be only fractionally smaller than the tray table. So my first task is to negotiate tray space for my glass, the half-full bottle of my drink, as well as room for the packet of peanuts I've unceremoniously torn open with my teeth.

By the time I've taken the plastic coverings off those dinky little food containers and relieved my cutlery from its plastic sheath, I'm left with a pile of non-re-useable plastic pieces – and nowhere to put them.

I lose so much time fussing over this recycling dilemma that I'm never quick enough to look around and see what other, more cabin-savvy passengers have done with their mounds of plastic. Eventually the plastic wrappers are shoved into the seat pocket and flattened under my tray. I settle down to my meal, but somewhere between turbulence and keeping my elbows from jabbing fellow passengers, only about 50% of the food finds its way to my mouth. The other 50% is usually split evenly between landing in my drink and dribbling onto my shirt collar and onto my lap.

What is acceptable airborne dinner etiquette? Getting neck cramp in a half-kowtow position over one's tray, or lifting the food containers to one's mouth and poking furiously at them from just below the chin? Why are adults who are perfectly normal, well-bred individuals on the ground forced to abandon all dignity in the air, and return to the table manners of cavemen? Do the airline's caterers take some malicious delight in imagining the passengers struggling with their offerings, or is it meant to intimidate us so we won't give the cabin crew any attitude?

By the time the stewardess comes round to offer coffee or tea, I have to extract the cup from underneath a landfill of used serviettes, cheese wrappers and crackers, as well as the empty butter containers. It's become quite a precise science for me to unearth the cup neatly without collapsing everything. And, believe me, it's with a pretty awkward smile that I finally say: "Coffee with milk, please." But my salvation does come – eventually. I'm truly saved by the bell (or, rather, that little "ping" that goes off as the pilot announces it's time to descend). As the "fasten seatbelt" light goes on, it's the sign for me to finally relax, sit back and put my etiquette faux pas behind me.

I wearily fumble for my safety belt – but my hand happens upon a displaced chocolate, melting smugly under my thighs! I tell you, sisters – eating on a plane is a hopeless exercise. Perhaps we should take this god-given opportunity to refuse food and lose half a kilogram!