Plane Companions

On a long plane flight, nothing is dreaded more than the fear of being stuck to someone who you don’t like, get along with, or find disagreeable. John and I travel very well together. We know each other’s quirks and travel eccentricities. When I travel with John, he likes the window seat and I am fine with that but it invariably means that I will be the one stuck sitting next to the stranger. Luckily for this past trip to Arizona, I was pretty lucky with the two individuals who sat next to me on the way out and returning from Phoenix. The first was a very lovely young Italian beauty named Isabella who was about 10 years younger than me. She had dark long brown curly hair with large expressive eyes who was deep into the popular women’s erotic novel, “50 Shades of Grey”. When we did start conversing the last 1/3 of the plane flight, I found out she was a high school counselor heading out to Las Vegas for a bachelorette party. Hmmm. Imagine that. She was meeting friends for a long weekend of partying and drinking. You know what they say, “What happens in Vegas …” I had a fun time talking with her. We connected on a lot of different levels and not just about the partying in Vegas thing. LOL. My travel mate on the plane flight back was a young woman as well. She was 20 something, quiet, mousey, bookish, and thoroughly into her novel of choice, “The Hobbit”. Completely different from the woman on the trip out, this one would probably be happier at a Sci-Fi Convention in Vegas rather than a Chippendales Revue show. She is quietly snoring next to me as a write this. On the return trip home, we were waiting for 10 minutes on the plane for takeoff and an older business man across the aisle was still on his cell phone. The stewardess (yes, I know it’s supposed to be flight attendant, but stewardess reminds me of the heyday of flight travel, when it was so much more glamorous, exciting, and fun to travel) passed by and said to him in a stern tone, “Sir, I told you five minutes ago to put that cell phone out and I’m not going to tell you again.” The stewardess gave him a “Don’t fuck with me fella” look and he withered in his seat. He replied, “Oh, OK I’m sorry, I’m, I’m done, I will shut it off now.” I turned and said to John, “That SENIOR CITIZEN over there wouldn’t turn off his cell phone! And then the stewardess got all upset and … blah blah blah.” John just looked at me as I trailed on and on, took out his ear plugs and said, “What?” I shook my head and left out a loud sigh and exclaimed “Never mind!” The hobbit woman, who had heard my one-sided exchange with John, turned to me and said matter of factly, “You know he’s old. And old people forget to do things. He probably heard her but then forgot about it a minute later. It happens you know … when you’re old.” I just stared at her thinking, Yeah, that’s it hobbit woman. And then I didn’t feel so bad for silently calling her a hobbit woman.