Now I appreciate that my little travelling group ranks pretty high in the Nightmare Passengers league. Even if our in-flight experience so far has been okay I can see the dread in people eyes as we check in. I don’t blame them. You never know who you’ll be sitting next to.
We were allocated seats either side of the aisle. Strangers filled the window places at the edges. They ended up making me feel much less worried about the disruption we caused.
On one side of us was a whale of a woman with a bladder problem. She didn’t so much sit down as ooze into her seat. Great mounds of blubber rested like water-filled balloons on the arm-rests. She didn’t look comfortable. Mind you, as she seeped into our space, neither did we. Now I’m pretty thick and cumbersome but this was something else. Watching her trying to find her seatbelt was like watching a kangaroo pick up a marble. I thought about stepping in but worried about losing a limb. Eventually she called over a stewardess. Poor girl. She was a model of professionalism though: her smile remained completely fixed as she entered into a desperately unequal sumo match and her arms sank into the folds of skin like quicksand. They grappled and grunted for some time before wrenching the ends of the belt free. It was hopelessly too short. With more tact that I could muster, the stewardess went quietly for an extension. Actually she connected two together and then, like securing a airship in a gale, strapped this woman down.
In her position, I think I’d have stayed put for the short internal flight but she was clearly going to get her money’s worth from the complimentary refreshments. Unfortunately her body couldn’t match her ambition. I timed it. Each of the four drinks she consumed took between twelve and sixteen minutes before requiring a trip to the Little Girls’ Room, although clearly she was an honorary member of that club. Some people might have become angry with her very physical and frequent demonstration of a hyperactive bladder but it gave me a chance to inhale. I didn’t complain.
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