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163 lines, 138-thousand-and-I-don’t-care points.

As I’ve reminded each of you no less than eleventy billion times, I am capable of a much higher Tetris score when using a portable video game console. Considering it has been years since I’ve played Tetris on my Gameboy Advance SP (for shame!), I am still happily surprised by this outcome, as I’m sure are all of you. But it could have been better.

I could sit and write about this for hours (three-and-a-half exactly, since that’s how much longer it will be before I land in Kansas City), but I will gloss over the fine nuances I experienced while playing this game and get to the point, maybe. Suffice it to say, things were going great and I was in the zone until the pilot picked up the intercom and started running his mouth about the weather or some shit.

Distracted, I misplaced a crucial “L” piece and that threw off my whole configuration. So I was all, “SHIT! What the FUCK!?” And the flight attendant was all, “Excuse me, can I get you something?” And I was all, “No, but you can get the pilot a tall glass of Shut The Fuck Up.” And she was all, “Oh NO you di-in’t!”

By then, my game was pretty much over so I threw my Gameboy at her and yelled, “Hell YEAH I did, bitch! You got SERVED!” So she was like, “Nuh-uh, it’s ON!”

Suddenly a Russian polka band occupying the back row broke out their instruments and began playing a sped-up version of the Tetris theme while some virtually unknown but well-connected dj popped out of first class to throw a techno beat behind it. I asked some Islamic terrorists to put their raid on hold and use the various assortment of machetes and liquid containers over 3 ounces that they’d snuck onto the plane to clear out a few seats so I could settle the score with this meddlesome bitch. Everyone knows that when you exact your fiery vengance on the person who fucked up your game, your score automatically increases to exceed your current high score.

Anyway, that bitch and her flight crew were all frontin’ and shit, so I lifted one of the metal drink carts above my head and threw it at them. When the co-pilot rushed to help (’cause the head pilot be tawkin’), I grabbed him by the legs and threw him against the cabin door till it opened. I pushed him out of the plane and watched him fall at our cruising altitude of 37,000 feet. This made the head pilot stop all his jibber-jabber and see what was happening, and what was happening was his ass falling 37,000 feet shortly after. At that point, the Islamic terrorists figured their work here was done, so they stole the only parachutes on the plane and jumped out, pleased that they would live to hijack another US passenger aircraft.

With both pilots gone and the flight-simulator-trained terrorists floating safely over rural Oregon, all the passengers turned to me like, “Dude, WTF?” except for a scraggly black homeless guy with a crazy look in his eyes who yelled, “You gonna die!” Then everyone started freaking out. I exclaimed, “This vessel is too heavy! We need to lose more weight!” and pushed the bum out of the cabin door.

As most people know, flying a plane is not very difficult. Various actors and actresses are called upon to do this all the time and they always pull it off. Besides, for this trip, I decided to travel smart: I took my vicodin BEFORE boarding the plane and ordered a screwdriver once we were in the air. This is quite preferrable to the reverse, which includes three pre-flight drinks, some guy from Tacoma, two more in-flight drinks, and a stomach ache.

I rushed into the cockpit and put on a headset. I said a bunch of shit like, “Alpha nine-oh-eight to control tower, do you read me? Over.” And, “Mayday, we need clearance for landing! Over.” And, “Red Rover, Red Rover, can my Boeing 737 come over? Over.” And, in a low, gruff voice, “It’s OVERRRR! …Over.”

Then I pushed some buttons and steered for awhile until we almost ran out of gas and I had to land the plane. I crashed into the gate slightly ahead of schedule and only injured seven people. Yes, I could have taken a bit more care and spared them, but I had to catch a connecting flight and the layover was only 30 minutes. I barely made it onto the plane, let alone into a bar so I could pound a few cocktails with some fellow wayward travelers with whom I’d trade business cards and forget hours later.

So that’s the story of how I got 163 lines playing Tetris. And crash-landed a plane at DFW.

Addendum: I ended up coming even closer to beating my score during the trip home: 193 lines. I’d really like to blame someone else for my not being able to get another 7 measly lines (which would beat my running score of 199), but I have no one to blame by my own lack of planning and deteriorating motor skills.