Snakes on a Plane

Let me tell you about my plane ride from hell.

On the flight from Phoenix to LA (am visiting the parents for a week), I was subjected to a bad case of loud, verbal diarrhea from a crass fifty year old divorcée--let's call her Denise. Think Stifler's mom from the American Pie movies but less hot, more verbose, and equally raspy. Ten minutes after sitting down, she'd already whipped out some deodorant and slathered her armpits, revealed the minibar inside her purse (Malibu white rum and lime slices in a Ziploc bag), and told all about her dad's awesome house with an awesome pool that he bought in foreclosure and her nine year affair with a married man whose wife is mostly toothless thanks to a meth habit.

One would think that Denise's vulgar and unfiltered stream-of-consciousness chatter would prove a buzzkill, but her attempts at flirtation with the forty-eight year old gentleman sitting to her left paid off in spades. Turns out, he--let's call him Daniel--and his wife have been married for sixteen years but have nothing in common and are considering divorce after their three kids head to college. Oh, and he had a two year affair with a woman he, you guessed it, met on a plane.

For the duration of the flight, Denise and Daniel traded stories of their failed relationships, their affairs, their jobs, and their love of gambling. He bought her a Bacardi and Coke, to which she added the bottle of Malibu from her purse. She pressed her phone number and tried to convince him to visit her in Atlanta. Like watching a train wreck.

Are you wondering why I didn't put in my earphones to block out the conversation? Oh, right. Because I FORGOT them at home. Worst. Fail. Ever.

Here are a few of the gems to which I was treated:

Denise: Oh. No. OH NO. OHNO. I put on the wrong shade of lipstick. I put on the wrong lipstick.
Daniel: [jokingly] Is it going to clash with your outfit?
Denise: [frantically rifling through her purse] No, it's just the wrong one. It's the wrong one. Where is my other lipstick?

Denise: On one of my other flights I sat next to this lady who had her ovaries removed and she told me that she got lots of wrinkles because of it. I guess that's what happens when you have everything taken out. I had my uterus taken out at forty-four because I didn't want kids, but guess I won't get anything else taken out because God I don't want wrinkles.

Denise: I used to like doing coke. But I'm not into hard drugs.

Denise: They sell everything in a Chinese Walmart. Did you know they sell whole bull penises? It's crazy in there. There's like meat lying everywhere, on hooks on the walls, like parts you don't even know what they are, like rib cages, you can stick your hands in them. And they eat dogs. It's so horrible, they'll eat anything.
Daniel: Well, it's a different culture. Maybe they just do things differently.
Denise: When my mom was in South Africa, they killed her cat. She tried to find a home for her dog but couldn't for her cat so they killed it.

And then she started having hot flashes.

The whole thing just depressed me. Is this what the world has come to? Are we so callous and jaded and uncaring that we try to take whoever and whatever we want, and we can so easily rationalize our bad behavior? I know that there are so many good, kind, faithful people out there, but seeing such blatant attempts to commit adultery up close was a bit demoralizing.

One last note--turns out that both Denise and Daniel served in the Air Force during the 80s, she as an MP and he as a flight engineer. God bless America.