Forced Companionship
We’d prefer to sit together, but sometimes it just doesn’t work out. I’m sitting in the middle seat next to a professor-looking gentleman with a book of sudoku thicker than his glasses, and a dude with large headphones and a propensity toward king-size three musketeer bars.
Just across the aisle, my wife is pressed up against the window. Next to her sits two bridesmaids going to the same wedding as most of the passengers in the rows ahead and behind her. The rambunctious girls talk my poor wife deeper into the corner and I’m sure the giggling can be heard in the cockpit.
May God have mercy on her soul.
The professor folds down his tray and begins driving away with his pen at a well-marked notebook. On my left, D’Artagnan loudly tucks a chocolatey wrapper into the seat in front of him.
Ah, the beverage cart cometh.
I quietly sip my coffee and listen in as a lady directly behind me puts in her order.
“Could I get you something to drink,” the attendant asks, sweetly.
A stern voice replies, “just a half cup of black coffee. Just a half,” she bellows, “no more!”
Does she know that she can’t handle a full cup? Does she not realize she doesn’t absolutely have to finish a full cup? I giggle at her lack of self-control; but only because I get it.
“That looks intense,” I say, nodding to the professor’s notebook. Turns out he’s an actual professor.
A legit one.
At Dartmouth.
He tells me that he’s working on international healthcare privacy agreements and other things I don’t understand. We hit it off and he regales me with tales of an old church in Oxford and 100-year-old oak timbers. He blinks excitedly through the wiry grey hair that covers most of his face. Occasionally he wipes his hands on his corduroy pants. Grey collar sticks out from disheveled purple sweater. He has conquered the professor look.
Planes force companionship. And though our new relationships may expire in two hours and thirty minutes, they are still worth forging. We’re all in this together.
anthony forrest
You have a much more positive outlook on plane companions than I do! But you’re right: In the end we really are all in this together. I need to keep that in mind, especially when I’m in any airport. We’re all just trying to get where were going. I enjoyed this post!
Why thanks!