Q is for Quarantine

by C-130

Getting stuck somewhere with nothing to do can suck, but luckily the vehicles of Piston Peaks Air Attack Base are pretty creative when it comes to entertaining themselves. So in the world of COVID-19, I present you with a special Planes Advent Calendar to help make social distancing a bit less boring...O is for Overloaded-An emergency on base forces Windlifter to push his engines.

36. J is for Jar

Author's Note: Prompt suggested by PenNameArtist

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J is for Jar

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Cabbie had fought in two Wars and countless fires so he was wise enough to know when he had met his match…and staring at his current adversary it was clear he had met an enemy he was ill-equipped to concord. The jar of pickles sitting on the countertop in front of him just continued to sit there without a single indication of just how much work the plane had put into trying to open it.

Cabbie had spent a good 45 minutes trying to defeat his nemesis, but even various tools in the well-equipped kitchen or even his teeth were no match for the stubborn lid of the pickle jar. He nosed jar and once again reminded of why he preferred cans. Cans could be thrown on the automatic can opener. Jars…jars were just plain evil.

Under normal circumstances, Cabbie would have just ditched the pickles and made a recipe that involved ingredients that were not trapped in jars, but Blackout had been halfway through dinner's meal prep when the whole team had been called out to respond to a fire. So now while the rest of the team was working on extinguishing the flames, Cabbie was left trying to make sure there was a meal on the table when they returned...the keyword in that statement being trying.

Cabbie stared down the jar of pickles then sighed heavily. Sometimes a plane just had to admit defeat. Carefully he leaned over and picked up the jar with his teeth and went seeking assistance. He didn't have to go far to find it, as Maru was tinkering in his mechanic's hanger and seemed to be highly amused by the aircraft rolling towards him.

"Open it." Cabbie stated as soon as he had carefully spat out the jar in front of Maru.

It took Maru less than a minute to pop the lid open and nudge the jar towards the clearly pissed-off plane. It appeared that the mechanic wanted to make a snarky comment, but one look at how Cabbie's flaps were twitching convinced Maru to keep his mouth shut.

"Thank you." Cabbie said, but the way he said it was clear that the words were nothing more than a formality. "Dinner will be ready in about 30 minutes."

With that Cabbie gingerly picked up the open pickle jar and gently maneuvered back to the main hanger to finish up the meal he was preparing.