Oh, no, please not the woman with the baby. She is a pathos engine. The kid’s tear-stained cheeks speak to the ordeal they’ve been through on the first part of their journey. I have nothing left to give. Call me bitter, but I’ve completed my own parenting phase and have little patience for other people’s children.
Next comes the world-traveling backpacker. I can smell him almost from the time he steps across that disconcerting four inch gap between the jetway and the illuminated fuselage entry, turns right past the wincing flight attendant and starts scoping out bins where he can stuff his filthy, overstuffed carry-on. Fortunately he is seated in row 23, but he lingers in the air long after he passes, when the air handling system can filter his stench with the rest of the cabin’s toxins.
The guy in 14C is going to be a problem. I’ve seen his type before. I estimate that somewhere over the Continental Divide his seat back will drop like a rock into my lap, leaving me no room to lower my tray or prop up my iPad.
Then comes the huffing and puffing IT dude, sweating through his form fitting polo shirt and clearly in need of a lap belt extender. He struggles to balance his phone, adjust his Bluetooth headset and pull a laptop from the outside pocket of his bag. Row 12. I breathe a sigh of relief. My antipathy to his weight struggle is rooted in deep denial of my own passion for high calorie snacks. It is my lifelong battle, but I stopped wearing clingy shirts years ago.
I spend several anxious moments monitoring a strange and unilateral conversation between a lone male passenger in 14D and a young couple with a baby in 14E and 14F. He probes with a series of questions, possibly to make small talk, but tainted with hints of, “Oh, it’s a shame your child is going to die on this flight without living almost any of his life.”
“Do you fly often?” he asks
“No, we were on vacation.”
“Where are you from?
“Santa Monica.”
“It’s really weird being 30,000 feet in the air.”
“Um, yeah.”
“That’s a long way to fall, heh heh.”
It doesn’t help that chatty passenger 14D has dark skin, possibly Middle Eastern, is traveling alone, very fidgety in his seat and gosh I can’t recall seeing him with anything but a personal item. How the young couple resists calling for an Air Marshall is beyond me. But then, I sit there in silence, fretting over my own potential circumstances, skipping my chance to “see something/say something” and trying not to stereotype.
By some miracle, 15B remains empty. I am spared the uncomfortable hours of tight quarters above the clouds. There are times when my general anxiety over the miracle of flight benefits from the distraction of a talkative seatmate. But more often than not it feels more like an extended version of the awkward moments with strangers in an elevator, all front-facing silence, sidelong glances and holding breath.
I close my eyes and try to relax. There is no point in sleeping yet, but the whoosh of the air conditioning and the building engine hum are hypnotic. I nod off before the last passenger boards. It is 15B, possibly a model, who traverses the distance from first class to my row as if on a catwalk. I don’t see her double check her boarding pass as she approaches. I am unaware of her disgust at my open mouth and the bit of drool that has begun to make its way down my chin. I awake at her urgent request to be excused. I unbuckle my lap belt and backhand my spittle as I squeeze into the aisle. The speed at which she opens a magazine and inserts her ear buds is impressive. It’s going to be a long flight to LA.
😎
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