Music Through Rubber Tubes

remember the days of yore when your in-flight entertainment was crappy music piped through these?

I have come to learn these are called pneumatic headsets.

sure, it’s not some fancy-pants touchscreen where you can watch movies and order food and watch your flight progress, but it had its benefits, especially when you’re a kid with nothing better to do (those free decks of cards and pilot wings only went so far).

• endless hours (ok, minutes) of fun from squeezing or kinking the tubes, making one or both ears get muffled/no sound.
• seeing if you could talk into the plug end so your brother can hear you through the earpieces. (“can you hear me now?!”)
• flipping through the audio channel dial quickly to see if you could break it (i couldn’t).
• pretending you’re a doctor wielding a stethoscope.
• trying to sleep, leaning on a pillow on a propped up armrest, ear positioned right by the output holes. if you turned the volume all the way up you could fall asleep to music without being encumbered by a headset.

and yes, i’m speaking from experience. i couldn’t have been the only one!

image via allproducts.com