You’re a professional athlete. A baseball player, let’s say. You’re stuck on a 19-hour flight to Tokyo for business after a brisk protest and exhibition game. The doctors tell you to stay awake through the whole flight so the jetlag isn’t as bad. How do you entertain yourself for nearly a full day?

(Someone’s going out the airlock if this happens, Papelbon)

Bring DVDs with. Play poker. Lots of poker. Hell, order a three-foot-long portable poker table with the team logo on it and plop that sucker down right in the middle of the plane. Dear God, anything to avoid having to open a book.

“The approximately 19-hour trip to Japan that the Red Sox embarked upon last night was going to feature an array of time-killing devices but the No. 1 diversionary tactic is going to be poker, the Texas Hold ’Em variety.

“I’m going to play the whole trip,” closer Jonathan Papelbon said. “My plan is to slow play the (expletive) out of them and take all their money.”

He had no other plans. Reading is out.

“I don’t read books,” he said.”

Man’s got to take a stand, Jon. Good for you. Don’t look too closely at the three books Theo Epstein bought for the trip; they might try to lure you in with their siren’s call of words and punctuation.

What if you forget to pack entertainment for the trip, though, “Twilight Zone”-style?

““I’m just going to have to borrow,” catcher Kevin Cash said.”

For crying out loud, Kevin. You had two jobs on this whole trip: bring entertainment for the flight and pack the floppy softball glove that Tim Wakefield wants his catcher to wear. Did you pack the glove, Kevin? Did you?

Alright, everybody; the plane’s going back. SOMEONE took one too many knucklers to the face and didn’t pack Wake’s glove.