We were surprisingly chirpy for two women who had arrived at the airport at 4:30 am. Joan had hit the lottery, scoring a fast-pass through security while I was held up (and felt up) at every turn. "I'm going to touch your upper thigh," the agent told me. "Is that what we're calling it these days?" I asked her.
We made it successfully to our gate and sat across from a man who was NOT chirpy. Silent. Imposing. But whom , I suspect, was secretly delighted to eavesdrop on our cheerfully inane conversation. When I returned from a restroom visit, Joan discreetly showed me a cryptic message typed on her phone: I think the man across from us is famous.. I frowned, disappointed in her. "Don't be racist," I whispered. "No, not because he's black," she snapped back, "Some young men noticed him and rushed over for some complicated handshake ritual and a picture." I studied our seatmate, who now had his hat masking his face. His calves were pretty spectacular. Sadly, our brush with fame would be but a flicker as he would travel on to bigger and better things in Chicago and we would head to...New Jersey, forever wondering: Who was that masked man with the spectacular calves?
We fulfilled our hot pretzel acquisition fantasy in Newark, stowing them away for the second leg of our plane journey. Seated behind the bulkhead..."Lots of legroom," Joan sighed happily, stretching out, and immediately began searching for some gorilla glue to fix loose parts on the plane. We conducted a pre-test run on compartmentalized seat trays hidden in our arm-rests. "We're ready to take our SATs," we reported to our flight attendant. Our delight at being on time was diminished when we discovered that our pilots were missing. Our offer to help was appreciated but denied. I began to fret that my hot pretzel was growing colder with every passing minute. "You could eat it now," Joan offered but my dream was of an in-flight consumption accompanied by an ice-cold Pepsi. "I feel your pain," my flight attendant empathized as I shed copious tears upon learning this was to be a Coke-flight. Our pilots were eventually unearthed, we waited patiently in line behind 10 planes for take-off, were mistakenly informed that we were heading to San Francisco, the entire plane listing to the side as the passengers rioted and then...air-born with a cold hot pretzel.
Thus began a series of strung-out complaints served up by my seatmate. "I can't sleep on planes," Joan told me after a long bout of bobbing-dog head. She rubbed her neck. "You're just not trying," I told her. "I need a pillow," Joan explained. I checked my watch. "You can have our first round of peanut M&Ms in twenty-two minutes," I said to raise her spirits. She thrashed about in her seat. "How long is this flight again?" Our flight attendant, sensing discord in the bulkhead, rushed over with a cookie. "What the hell is this?" I said in disgust, looking at the round wafer cookie sandwiching a powdery caramel concoction. I watched Joan unhappily eat hers (She was raised NOT to waste food...I had a happily permissive childhood) before taking a teeny-tiny bite of mine, retching a bit and then deciding that we'd waited long enough for M&Ms. Joan's leg suddenly erupted into a cramp. Clutching her spasming limb, she hissed through gritted teeth, "How much longer?" "We're fifteen minutes into our six hour flight," I said soothingly. The attendant offered us another cookie. "No!" we declined loudly as the plane encountered a bit of a blip. "Don't worry, folks," one of our lost pilots assured us, "the wifi will be up and running again in just a few minutes." "Shouldn't he be more concerned with steering the plane than the wifi?" I wondered. "When's Round Two of our peanut M&Ms," Joan asked, rubbing her leg some more.
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