4.17.00 - 18:14:42
For those of you who saw my tragically melodramatic last entry, I’m back. I’m back and everything’s pretty much okay now. I removed that entry the next day. It was over the top, even for me. For those of you itching to know what happened, here’s a visual recap.
I was feeling mighty poorly. Mighty poorly indeed. If you need a rundown, and I know you do, here it is:
- Potentially lost colonoscopy results
- Nasty fight with Hula Pet resulting in a bruised arm (completely accidental, but conveniently provided me with a healthy dose of self righteous indignation)
- Notice from the higher powers at work that all my projects are in a “temporary freeze”
- House fly infestation
- Cramps
Let me tell you something. When things go from bad to worse, there is nothing, no one thing better than getting on plane and flying away from it all. The moments between take off and when the stewardess (flight attendant, air hostess, whatever) brings you the first cold beer are as close to heaven as I can imagine. Unless I’m having a panic attack, then of course, they are hell. This time, however, no panic. Just a dreamy and blissful sense of everything rotten falling away.
At the risk of complaining too much in this entry, it wasn’t ALL wonderful on that plane. I was seated next to a fat man.
Now I’m no delicate flower, but I’m not so enormous that I can’t sit comfortably in an airplane seat with a little room to spare. This guy seriously cramped my style. It started out friendly enough, a little chuckling over his inability to first find and then connect his seat belt. An off hand comment about how we might get lucky and no one would be in the window seat next to him. Somewhere during the flight though, I had another beer and got up to use the bathroom. I didn’t realize when I returned that he had lifted up the armrest between us.
While he pretended to sleep, he slowly took over. First an elbow, then a buttock, then a leg. I was getting angrier and angrier, but didn’t have the balls to do anything about it. Dear me, I didn’t want to appear rude. So I sat there and stewed, sighed a lot and imagined all the things I might snap at him when we arrived. Things like, “I paid for this seat. I hope YOU ENJOYED IT,” and “I saved my peanuts for you, it must take a LOT OF CALORIES TO MAINTAIN THAT WEIGHT!”
I’m extremely passive aggressive and said none of those things. I did nothing but sit there and take it. When we got to the gate, I took my sweet time getting up and retrieving my bag from the overhead compartment. I had to be careful you know, contents can shift during flight.
As I hogged the aisle, I heard someone say, “Miss . . .”
Oh good, I thought, Lard Ass wants me to hurry it up. I just ignored him. As I started to walk away, again I heard “Miss,” this time accompanied by a tugging at my sleeve. I whirled around and shouted, “WHAT!”
“You left your purse under your seat.”
I can’t catch a break. I had to say thank you to Lard Ass, which was bad enough, but at the same time I had to literally bow down to him as I got my purse. He smirked his fat man smirk and that was the last I saw of him.
But I really should thank him again. Between him and the prompt beer-toting stewardess, I had completely forgotten what had me so upset here in Chicago.
Thank you, Lard Ass.
