Plane rides have become similar for everyone. We all sit facing one direction, fastened to a chair floating in the sky. We squirm every ten minutes to find a comfortable position on dual usage-seat cushion/flotation devices and we make useless small talk to the passenger next to us on topics of our future destination. Mam, I don’t need your opinion on the weather- I looked it up on Google. But first, we must pass the people in first class. Hello dickwads. I enter the plane after your bourgeoisie ass and see your nose stuffed into the pages of the Wall Street Journal yet you don’t even have to decency to look up at me as I am stopped to halt and uncomfortably stand with my crotch eyelevel to your face. I continue to shuffle past the first ten rows, glance down at my boarding pass but subconsciously do not retain my seat number, I pass the next ten rows and come to a complete stop because some idiot over packed their suitcase then finally arrive to my seat: 45 E. Neighbors with the lavatory and trapped as the bitch in the middle.
The moment between taking off and 30,000 feet is as uncomfortable as standing face to face with a stranger in an elevator. You cannot use electronic devices so putting on headphones to block the window to conversation looks just as pointless as wearing sunglasses at night. Do you strike up a bland conversation? Do you browse Sky Mall and finally order that virtual reality 3d glasses you’ve always wanted? No, you just wait and stare at the balding head in front of you and count the last surviving hairs. Finally, when permission to use electronic devices has been granted it is a sigh of relief; like unbuttoning your pants after a Thanksgiving meal. People scramble for their headphones, iPods and laptops to become one with solitude. Until, the nosey passenger looks over your shoulder to see what you are reading, listening or typing. I see you in my peripherals; don’t even try to be sneaky. I expand my chest by taking in deep breaths in hope of blocking their view of my personal belongings. I turn angles against their line of sight but only making it more obvious I am hiding something like in a game of Battleship. When all else fails, I must resort to my last weapon; I unwrap my stinking tuna fish sandwich. Aw, yeah- smell it, take it, and waft it.
Turbulence arrives. Ahoy there! My heart just fell through my ass and I have tuna on my forehead. Turbulence is a bonding experience. You make fearful, lasting eye contact with passengers you have never acknowledged and you share a moment of anxiety while offering smiles of comfort. This is a moment where first class and economy have no gap in between- we are all shitting our pants. The turbulence finally passed and so did a few passengers’ bowels but no fear there is plenty of single sheet toilet paper to clean up the mess.
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