August 20, 2021
The Eagle Has Landed
The Rainbow. Solarized.
I'm in Colorado right now. Sitting at a kitchen table in Littleton (yes, home of Columbine). It smells clean, the sky is beautiful and we saw the most magnificent rainbow ever yesterday. I'm in love with prairie dogs, although to native Coloradans they're equivalent to NYC rats. But they're too cute to be rats, and they bark and I want to take one home with me and call him Harry.
But I don't think we can get one on the plane. And besides, we're off to Denver in a few.
The plane ride was turbulent. And I tried to do a smart thing by reserving Jonny and me the aisle and window seats, leaving the middle seat in our row open. Only Jonny sat in the middle seat to be close to me in the window seat, leaving the aisle seat open. After the plane was boarded, I realized (with much excitement and a bit of smugness) that we had beat the system, and no one was going to get in between me and my plan. We were going to have all three seats, the doors were about to close, and that was that. I could sprawl out like a cat waiting to get his belly rubbed. And then it happened.
The smelliest, drunkest man I've ever seen get on a plane stumbled onto our plane and proceeded towards his center seat....two rows back. Apparently they had to make a special announcement to get him on the plane because he was too busy getting tanked. He saw our open aisle seat and asked the flight attendant if he could sit there. At first he said no, (go flight attendant) and I tried to convince Jonny to go sit back on the aisle seat, only Jonny stayed planted right where he was. He was convinced that he could go and tell the man that this was our aisle seat, but I thought that, since the plane was fairly full and we were one of the lucky ones with the extra seat, and Jonny was still in the middle seat, that this would make us look bad. So, he just sat where he was, and right before take off, the smelly drunk man was granted permission to move up to our aisle seat (fuck you very much flight attendant).
He sat down right next to Jonny. I almost cried. I was so upset; I couldn't look or talk to Jonny for awhile. I didn't want this smelly drunk man in my row, all I wanted to do was stretch my feet out in the center seat and go to sleep. Instead I watched South Park all night thanks to Direct TV. And I got some sort of satisfaction knowing it was not I, but Jonny, who had to sit next to the drunk man who not only smelled like alcohol but who had the stinkiest feet that might have ever existed (yes, he took his shoes off on the flight just to add that cherry on top.) Sometimes I think that should be one of those banned on plane things.
Anyway, we survived. We made it. And I learned a valuable lesson. It's not always going to go as planned, but it's always going to go, so it's best not to make too many plans.
Posted by jamye at August 20, 2021 12:54 PM