GET AWAY

I’m alone, craving solitude. It’s denied me as I grip the armrest on Southwest’s flight # 109, Boston to San Antonio. There is an overly overweight senior lady between a male stranger, me and the plane’s wing. The woman taps her chest, breathes heavily. Her eyes flutter. Momentarily I believe she is having a stroke, or worse, dying. If she dies, god forbid, I will have to step over her body. I lengthen my usual prayer to the captain to get me up there without being hit by a plane coming in and ask for her survival.

It seems we taxi long enough for us to already be in San Antonio. My feet are frozen to the floor. We bank towards the ocean. I am ready to call a stewardess to have her tell the captain we are going the wrong way, when I come to realize he knows what he is doing as we head south along the coast, bank until we almost turn over and gain altitude faster than I like to dwell on the thought.

I’ve heard many times about the life raft under my seat, took notes of what happens when the oxygen mask falls in my lap, and still I remove the instructions that are in glorious Southwest color, where the exit doors are, how to open the emergency door. I’d still rather go cross country by ship. I can’t fly but am a good swimmer.

The captain tells us the route we will be taking, our speed and altitude and time of arrival at the lay-over spot. My lord, we will not arrive safely. The pilot is a woman ! I start to pray more seriously and stop when, without a word to me, Fat Stuff sitting next to me, lifts the arm rest so she can ooze out onto my reserved seat. Her buttocks are now pushing mine almost to the outside plane skin. I am upset as I consider the arm rest at least ½ mine. What a nerve she has! What chutzpah! If I don’t do something about this immediately, I’ll have no arm rest the entire trip–unless she dies.

The line to the mixed sexes rest room, where no one can sit or stand comfortably fills the entire narrow aisle. Stewardesses from each end of the plane push cart towards each other, struggle to serve the passengers coffee and plastic bags of peanuts that need a small scissors to get open. This is the time I pray hardest. ‘God, I’m up here, closer to you. Do you hear me? If this flight is going to crash, please don’t let it happen while the carts are in the aisle. Noone can escape such a condition. The throbbing, then silence of the jets makes me believe he tuned in.

‘I’ll have decaf coffee, black and a Sweet ‘n Low. ‘ ’We don’t have Sweet ‘n Low. We have Equal, the blue one. Want that?’ the stewardess asks. ‘Thank you Miss. Since I can’t get to the supermarket at the moment, I’ll accept the Equal. May I have two? Equal isn’t as sweet as my brand.’ She leaves me waiting. My tray is down. There is a napkin with a red plastic stirrer for my needed fix. I am ready but the passenger in front of me isn’t. Somehow he squeezes thru the carts, got to the toilet and back. When he gets to his seat that still has the plane skin to lean on and an armrest, he plops down hard enough that my tray wobbles and my coffee spills all over my skirt. He knows from nothing, isn’t aware what he caused until I buzz for the stewardess, hoping she’ll bring a towel or a few dozen Southwest paper napkins. Of course, the stewardess can’t get past the cart and keeps pouring coffee.

The Fat Lady hands me her paper napkin and I grab the opportunity to thank her and also ask her to get her bottom off my seat and lose my guts.

Maybe I have telepathic ability because she replaces the arm rest and we talk our way all the way to San Antonio.