sprayhawk

Air Travel

Dropped off at airport.  Feeling unreal today.  Go to bookstore.  Very foreign man named Magadaresha at counter says “allo”.  I peruse all pertinent documents.  Am torn between buying Maxim, with sexy pics of half naked women, or buying logic puzzles.  After realizing certain amusements are banned on airplanes, I go with logic puzzles.  I also buy a Vitamin Water, the lower than low calorie kind, which tastes like watered down medicine.  Magadaresha asks if I will have enough time to “drink da doosh” before I go through security.  I pause.  Douche?  No, not douche.  Yes, yes I will have enough time.

In security, I pass through the metal detector unscathed, until the woman in blue asks me what “that bulge” is in my pants.  I am half a second from saying it is my unit, reconsider, and pull out my cell phone instead.  Security people are allergic to humor.  Never, ever joke with someone wearing latex gloves.

While waiting for my flight, I look around for potential babes and potential terrorists.  Neither sort seems to be present.  However, there is:

1)    A ginger in a zebra print dress.

2)    A balding man with two stud earrings in one ear.  One diamond color, one purple color.

3)    A Latino man wearing a K-State leather jacket.  It is half black and half purple.  I decide I do not like this man.  Colored leather, especially when purple, gives me gas.

I fart.  I put my hood up so as to remain mysterious and glance sideways at all fellow passengers.  My fart lingers.

I go into the bathroom and attempt to write, “I love cats” on the mirror in soap.  The soap is that pre-foamed kind and renders freelance art impossible.  I wish that I had a tube of lipstick.  This is the only time in my life that I have wished I had a tube of lipstick.  I don’t know why I want to write on the mirror.  I don’t even like cats.

Disappointed, I return to my waiting seat.  An Indian man proceeds to stand directly in front of me, despite the other 6,000 square feet of possible standing room.  He smells of curry and one of his sandals is half undone.  I stare at his ass because I have no other options.  His ass is a panorama.  Eventually he walks away.

On the plane I am sitting next to two women.  A middle aged mother and a college aged daughter.  From the incessant banter, I gain knowledge that they are on some sort of mother-daughter escapade to Europe or Morocco.  They each seem to ignore what the other is saying yet are incredibly enthusiastic.

Mother: The only mandatory rule on this trip is to have fun!

Daughter: I know!  I just love seafood.  I am obsessed with seafood.  Seafood is amazing.  It is the best thing in the world.  It’s so unbelievable!

From here I have flashbacks to many other college-aged women with a disease known as “hyperbole”  (look it up).  Everything is the best thing in the world.  Everything is so totally unbelievably unconceivably MINDBLOWING that they must, like, totally put it into words.  For this woman it is seafood.  For the next ten minutes she will be completely, utterly, and uncontrollably ENTHRALLED with seafood.  This love affair will end as soon as it has begun, most likely when she sees a flashing red light or the “cutest baby in the world”.

The mother is now peering over in attempt to read what I am writing in my notebook.  I am enraged.  I cast sideways glances at her.  I try to fart.  I cannot.  The cabin has been pressurized.

As we taxi down the runway, I notice that the balding man with the two stud earrings is not only sitting in front of me, but he is talking to himself.  I attempt my first logic puzzle.  The bald man is talking to himself louder now.  He might be repeating, “Shit I hate it,” or perhaps, “Shit, I ate it.”

The jet engines roar to life and the noise drowns out the voices.  I gawk as the green Midwest vastness expands panoramically below me.  Thousands of trees swirl and flow together, spreading vein like and delivering oxygen to the artificial metal reflections of buildings and backyard swimming pools.  The land extends for miles and then fades from forest green to baby blue, blending like a watercolor across the indiscernible horizon.  A ceiling of gray clouds waits ominously above us.  We soar unwaveringly toward it in the brave aluminum tube.  Bashful blue skies peek childlike through gaps in the great gray cloud dress.

The aluminum tube pushes into the gray fabric.

I are engulfed in white.

The aluminum tube shudders and trembles.

I are engulfed in blinding white.

The aluminum tube shakes and murmurs.

I are engulfed in bright blinding white.

The aluminum tube shivers and rattles.

BLUE!

An endless azure bowl of sky explodes over my head.

I am tiny and seated and my seat belt is fastened and my tray table is upright.

I attempt the next logic puzzle.