What’s with the tomato juice?

Okay, today I just had to ask. On my flight back from Nice, with KLM, everyone started to order Tomato Juice again. Just like on the flight over. And on the flights to and from Stockholm last week. This time I paid more attention. Of the 25 people around me (3 rows in front, my row and the row behind me) 17 people ordered tomato juice. Now, people can tell me a lot of stuff about coincidence and how it rules the universe, but this is just too odd. It defies all logic.

“So what?”, I hear you mumble, “ever heard of a Bloody Mary? That’s what all those people on the KLM flights are mixing themselves”. True, I did think of that. However, the ‘potent’ ingredient of Bloody Marys was not handed out with the Tomato Juice and on the, in my eyes, very disturbing question of the stewardess “Would you like pepper or salt with that?” all 17 people answered with a definite “No, just plain Tomato Juice please!”.

I deliberately choose not to go into the entire concept of mixing alcoholic beverages with Tomato Juice, pepper and or salt and add a little Tabasco just for the fun of it. That’s a weirdness that I’ll gladly discuss with you in person. But the Tomato Juice… It bugs me.

So I just had to ask. I just had to. Remember though that I’m surrounded by 17 people that have ordered the stuff and if we can assume that Coincidence isn’t playing some weird tricks on me, there might very well have been an additional 57.8 people on board drinking the stuff. If we can also agree on the simple fact that in order to drink Tomato Juice in the first place, you must be disturbed on many levels, you can see the pickle I found myself in. Or Tomato. Or whatever.

But I just had to ask. There was no way around it. So while the stewardess was putting the ingredients for the Courgette Smoothie I had ordered in her little cocktail shaker, I asked her what was up with all the Tomato Juice and when did that get back in fashion and where was I at the time…

Luckily the stewardess acknowledged that something was up with the Tomato Juice. While pouring another 4 Tomato Juices for the row behind me she told me: “Yeah, isn’t it mad? On some flights it’s even worse than on this one. Especially on flights to the former Eastern European countries, we just can’t seem to get enough of the stuff on board. Especially flights with destination Riga are famous for it. We almost exclusively serve Tomato Juice on those flights…”

More questions, more questions… where does the madness stop? Allow me to dive a little deeper into the issue. From a quick demographic study completely based on looks and noises, I have deducted that from the 17 people, 10 are Dutch. The other 7 are from countries where they speak English with a rather heavy accent. Because of all the engine noise, I can’t give you a more precise breakdown. I’m sorry. From the same 17 people, let’s call them the TJ’s, 7 are elderly (and Dutch), 5 are clearly smack in the middle of their midlife crisis (and not Dutch), 3 are younger than I feel (estimated in the 18-22 range) (1 Dutch, 2 Undutch), 1 is Dutch and very tiny (can only see a few hairs popping out over the top of the seat and 2 are Dutch and sitting directly behind me so don’t know how old they are, since I’m too shy to turn around and peek through the space between the two seats.

I’m willing to assume that the 7 Undutch are from Riga. (Isn’t that a star at 700 or so light years from Earth? Or was that Rigel?)

But the Dutch? Of various demographic groups. There’s just no clear pattern. It drives me mad. Unfortunately the elderly woman in the seat next to me (divided by the aisle, see, there is a God after all.) has just spilled her bottle of white wine all over her and is now complaining that she’s ‘floating in moisture’ (for the Dutchies reading this, her literal words are “Ik drijf in het vocht, niet normaal!”) so I hope everyone understands why I had to put my headphones on with the volume turned up beyond iPod limitations instead of doing a little survey among the TJ’s to clear up this matter once and for all.