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The three-hour flight that morning went fast. It went about 650 miles per hour.
Each row of ten seats on the huge DC-10 was interrupted by two aisles such that the grouping was 3-4-3. The 3's were the window seats. Allan and I were appointed two of the center four seats in Row #8, pretty near the front of the plane and the front bathrooms. Allan was next to the aisle and I was sandwiched between him and this big woman who consumed her own seat plus also flowed into half of mine. Her right shoulder and arm covered my left shoulder and arm.
I shifted as much as possible in Allan's direction, but Allan himself is no shrinking violet so had little space to spare. It seemed a cruel fate for one who had to get up so early and move so fast that morning, to now be caught like a pickle in a meatloaf sandwich.
I was thankful that the big woman was at my left, and that my right arm and right lap were free because I needed them to write my feature story about the Diethelms, whom I had interviewed the previous day. All the world's a stage and all the men and women are merely players ...
After an hour, the big woman talked. "You're going to get writer's cramp," she said in a husky voice. I wondered if she was trying to be funny. Every part of me was already cramped except my pencil.
"Are you a writer?" she continued, prodding me into conversation. I wanted to say, "Yes, and I can see the handwriting on the wall." So as long as I was being pressed out of the sandwich, I put down my pen and popped into the prying mode myself - and discovered she had been a marine for four years.
Her size and now her marine history were two reasons I sat still and remained very polite. I decided it was muscle, not just fat, smothering my left half and I didn't need any nastiness to flex it into a wrestling match.
They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts. Then this big bald man seated directly in front of me flipped his seat into the reclining position, which meant his big head with the little hair moved to about six inches from my nose.
And since my meal tray, which was part of the back of his seat, had been extended to hold my glass of tomato juice, I found the tray now moved to about six inches from my armpits. It was not a pretty picture.
All I could do was sit still and look straight ahead. I couldn't even get the last inch of tomato juice from my glass because the ice cubes ran into my face whenever I tipped the flimsy plastic airline glass toward my mouth.
With plenty of time to kill, and with some thought of killing those who design airplanes, I planned an escape to the bathroom. Allan graciously stepped into the aisle to allow me passage, but my step was not so gracious. After I put the meal tray up and slithered from under the arm of the monster marine, my boots got caught in the long strap of my purse under the seat. The knot seemed hopeless without space to bend and unravel the situation. The rest was a nightmare.
The line to the bathroom was four deep. I hate standing in lines to the bathroom. Everybody looks at you and knows exactly what you're going to do. But the truth is, on an airplane you're never sure what you're going to do.
The first thing I did was latch the door behind me, because that is what turns the light on and makes the appliances visible. It also makes the outdoor sign say "Occupied" to those standing in line. Eventually I figured out how to flush the blue water, how to turn on the white water, and where to stuff the brown paper towel.
Back in my pickle sandwich I watched a middle-aged man step into the bathroom without latching the door behind him. I imagined him in that tiny compartment, swaying in the pitch dark with the pitch of the swaying plane, trying to find the sink.
Then this gal with big airplane hair, who was sitting across the aisle from Allan, got a coughing fit that wouldn't subside. She coughed and phlegmed and coughed, and I knew that there was only so much air in the airplane and we all got to breath all of it. I could see her germs hopping from one molecule to the next until they got to the air directly in front of me. There was no escape.
For three hours there was no escape from the marine woman, the reclining man, nor the coughing girl. I was caught in a sandwich and being eaten alive, six miles high, far above earth but definitely not in heaven. However, my feature story for this issue of the Gazette had gelled, so fait accompli.
And that ends this strange eventful history ... but only for the time being. When we landed in Las Vegas, our luggage was missing. Honest Injun.
--Sue
DEADLINE
The deadline for the next issue of the Gazette is Monday, March 26th. You can send your news to Box 387 in Victoria, call me at 952-443-2010, or e-mail Sue@VictoriaGazette.com. Thank you always for thinking of the Gazette.
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