Unpredictable air travel with me, a dud
Kathy Hrastar
Issue date: 4/27/06 Last update: 5/1/06 at 5:02 PM PST
Section: Opinion
- Page 1 of 1
Everyone understands the danger of airplane travel.
Not just the obvious risk that you will bloat like a beached whale when fed nothing but sixteen packages of those miniature melba toasts and wagon-wheel pretzels dusted with a year's supply of mustard-flavored MSG.
The real danger can prove even more lethal-the Dialogue with the Adjacent Passenger.
Recently I buckled into an aisle seat. As the city shrank below, I chanced a glance out the window, my gaze intersecting the personal space of the spherical woman on my right, who at that same instant tilted her lizard head ever so slightly and-eye contact!
She pounced on that one flicker of connection like a toad snapping a fly.
She announced, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, that she was a psychic.
Before I describe her scrunched-up face with the beady hawk eyes boring through my soul, I must stress that I am not making this up. This is a true story, and it may become less so, but at that moment I was confronted with a genuine psychic, and I panicked.
What if she could read my mind!
First, I felt embarrassed. Not because I was thinking about sex, but because I was NOT thinking about sex. Everyone apparently thinks about sex all the time, yet in my sodium-induced coma I only wondered, when is the next trail-mix fix?
My next reaction was to deny my thoughts. Except, as soon as anyone denies anything it's certain that they're guilty as charged, a big fat liar, and probably should never be trusted again.
Look at this headline: Airlines Deny Profiling All Passengers And Seating Those Together Who Are Most Incompatible. Immediately you know it's a conspiracy.
Okay-if I couldn't deny, then I would confess.
I began, but fizzled out. My life is so boring I could think of nothing worth confessing.
Which led to my final option: I would cloud my brain with gibberish to throw her off.
While I concentrated on the statistical probability of a cow jumping over the moon, I stared her down. She stared back. Suddenly, I could read her mind! The psychic was thinking-how did she end up seated next to this dud?
Not just the obvious risk that you will bloat like a beached whale when fed nothing but sixteen packages of those miniature melba toasts and wagon-wheel pretzels dusted with a year's supply of mustard-flavored MSG.
The real danger can prove even more lethal-the Dialogue with the Adjacent Passenger.
Recently I buckled into an aisle seat. As the city shrank below, I chanced a glance out the window, my gaze intersecting the personal space of the spherical woman on my right, who at that same instant tilted her lizard head ever so slightly and-eye contact!
She pounced on that one flicker of connection like a toad snapping a fly.
She announced, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, that she was a psychic.
Before I describe her scrunched-up face with the beady hawk eyes boring through my soul, I must stress that I am not making this up. This is a true story, and it may become less so, but at that moment I was confronted with a genuine psychic, and I panicked.
What if she could read my mind!
First, I felt embarrassed. Not because I was thinking about sex, but because I was NOT thinking about sex. Everyone apparently thinks about sex all the time, yet in my sodium-induced coma I only wondered, when is the next trail-mix fix?
My next reaction was to deny my thoughts. Except, as soon as anyone denies anything it's certain that they're guilty as charged, a big fat liar, and probably should never be trusted again.
Look at this headline: Airlines Deny Profiling All Passengers And Seating Those Together Who Are Most Incompatible. Immediately you know it's a conspiracy.
Okay-if I couldn't deny, then I would confess.
I began, but fizzled out. My life is so boring I could think of nothing worth confessing.
Which led to my final option: I would cloud my brain with gibberish to throw her off.
While I concentrated on the statistical probability of a cow jumping over the moon, I stared her down. She stared back. Suddenly, I could read her mind! The psychic was thinking-how did she end up seated next to this dud?
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