revjim.net

I don't know what I did to deserve it, but I'm usually plagued with pretty terrible neighbors on airplanes.

Like the guy who took up at least a seat and a half forcing me to spill out into the aisle therefore getting jabbed in the elbows by every passing person and beverage cart. And then he drops his cheese knife and can't quite reach so he asks me to retrieve it.

Or the guy who has some strange body odor that isn't exactly terrible but when combined with his halitosis and a fart every thirty seconds or so becomes nearly unbearable.

And countless numbers of older men who fall asleep almost immediately and then no matter how many jabs, pokes, prods, and coughs you give them, insist on sleeping and drooling on my shoulder.

But something must have turned in my favor. For the second leg of my last flight I sat against the window with no one occupying the seat next to me. It was heaven.

On the first leg I sat in the aisle seat. In the middle sat a blue eyed, dark haired "au pair" from Germany traveling from her last job in Dallas to her new job in Manhattan. She spent the majority of the flight reading some celebrity magazine and doing what she could to avoid the snoring, bobbing head, shoulder sleeping tendencies of the older guy against the window. I guess the fact that I always sit down in my seat and immediately pull out a book is a bit put-offish. As soon as I put it away she became quite talkative. We discussed the finer points of the pronunciation of the names of the horoscope signs in English and German (that was the conversation starter; "how do you say this word?"), being a nanny from overseas, her travels, and her proclivity for shopping. If I have to have someone sitting next to me that I don't know then this is the way to go.

Even considering the 2.5 hour layover I had in Charlotte, the 1.5 hour additional delay that I had when the Charlotte plane was late, and the whole "your bag is overweight so you'll have to rearrange it or pay a fee" thing, it was the best flight I've had in a long time.