Top Knot Twat

 

As I’ve said I hadn’t slept well in the day(s) preceding the flights, and now I had a handful of hours on a tile floor interrupted by military terror under my lids. I really could use some sleep. Sitting in the back of the plane watching people pour in and take their seats, I was inching ever closer to an honest to goodness travel blessing. The flight was not full, and no one had sat down next to me yet.

I thought, maybe I deserve this. Maybe this is the silver lining to last night, a full 6hour flight with all three seats to stretch out in. But I held my hope because I had really, really, really, really been burned before.

About a month prior, I took a 10hr bus to Chiang Mai and had something similar happen: a seat was open next to me as we departed and I thought that seat would remain free; but busses make stops. So while I gave hope the “home free” for a comfortable long trip, just a half hour later a girl who had no logical reason to believe that one seat was enough for her girth sat next to me at the last pick up stop we would make that night, a full 9 and a half hours to go. I was crushed, almost literally.

That trip wound up being a nightmare. She was easily twice and maybe three times my size, and I’m a big guy. Her hips swallowed half of my seat putting my testicles uncomfortably between the seat and the isle straddling a fucking L shaped lever for reclining the seat resembling some medieval shift stick. “Sorry, I can’t move over any more,” she said as though it were the busses fault.

I had 10 hours of this position to look forward to. But, being a solutions oriented person and my current ½ seat being at the very front of the second level of a double decker bus, there was a spot directly over the drivers head where I could sit on the floor quasi-illegally without disrupting any other passengers, or walking paths. For a while it was fun. I loved the view out the front window. Laying on the ground I could see the stars. It was a great silver lining and I enjoyed it. Despite the minor embarrassment of being caught (very innocently and accidentally) staring at a French girl’s bare feet perched on a railing near my head, it was a great spot.

So, I stayed there for a few hours until that same French girl spilled what must have been a full can of beer and the physics of a quick stop soaked my body and my pillow with something dark and sticky. It was a feeling I had trouble living with so I spent at least six more hours straddling that stupid lever while Shengas Khan’s hip battalions pillaged my territory and their leader snored away in the comfort of their absolute dominance.

….

All this is to say: although now a month later sitting on a flight to Nepal, some small hope lived in me that the open seats next to me would remain open and I could catch a little sleep with that space, I had been burned by wanton hope and wide hips too recently to be anything but cautious with my optimism.

Back during pre-boarding at the gate waiting area, this needle eyed hari-krishna zealot made himself known as the only enlightened person in the room. He did this by chastising the hundred and fifty or so travelers for their lack of spontaneous joy at his rendition of the only song Hari-Krishna’s know (look it up). Alone in his perfect divine exuberance for all aspects of life, without ally, this somehow emboldening his sense of superiority in the wake of total social rejection. I’ve seen this kind of religious narcissism in my older sibling and it is both baffling and impossible to confront, you have to just let it be. As the cabin was nearly full, he was making his way down the isle toward me. I thought, “yup, this could be my luck too.”

I felt some sadness for the poor souls who he did sit next to but mostly breathed a huge sigh of relief when he sunk down a few rows in front of me. Still, remarkably all two seats next to me: clear. Everyone seated. Attendants closing overheads. I might just have the luckiest day of my month. I might finally get to really sleep.

But then… just as I had allowed my hopes to settle into the possibility of sleep and a beautiful flight, crusty Krishna took a quick bathroom break, where upon he noticed that the entire back row of seats was unsold and in his enlightened “the world is my playground and everyone loves everything I do” way of being, slipped not-so-slyly into the back row.

Remember when I said I almost always purchase the last seat on the plane? I was surprised to find that I was actually in the second to last row. Turns out… on this model Boeing, they do not sell the last row of seats for reasons the attendant had trouble explaining to the Krusty Krishna, but she said that instead he could certainly sit just here instead…. gesturing to the seat next to me. And that grimy mother fucker did.

100% self righteousness and unwashed taint smell he looked at me with mystical significance and the prospect of conversion to the hairy way, the hairy truth and the hairy light.  I was not going to get into a 6hour primer on cults that leave you bald with a ponytail (and endless other additional ways to become completely insufferable), so I projected as much hate on him as I possibly could and he responded by falling asleep. That’s what I was supposed to do; damn you Karma.

Now, the reason they don’t sell the last row of seats on this plane is because it’s designed horribly. The economy cabin has around 130 people serviced by only two bathrooms. But on this flight there was a colicky baby who could not be consoled. The flight attendants instructed the mother to spend the remainder of the flight in the bathroom to spare the ears of the cabin. Krishna to the right of me, crying to the left and one singular bathroom for 130 people next to my seat. The empty last row was a strategy to create an infuriatingly confusing “on deck” group of passengers queuing for the bathroom without dangerously blocking the isles. But there was no instruction or assistance with this process so, people would come and line up, be told to sit, then someone else would come a little later and not understanding the sitting line rules, skip everyone and use the bathroom; total lawlessness. I am surrounded by the human misery of pee held too long, a stinky snoring Krisha, and a baby who just wants to feel better (very loudly) for 6 hours.

What’s funnier is that when I have to pee (all twenty times I have to pee), I have to join the que in the seats just behind me… and then other people take my seat in front of me while they’re waiting to pee. Including a five year old who’s father’s politeness got him skipped a few times and he couldn’t hold it anymore, so he unloaded in my seat. I tried to stay in the back row, but was moved by the attendants. Now I had to wake up Krusty the Krisna to move his bare, jet black feet so I could at least sit where it was just gross and terrible smelling, but not wet. We landed eventually… that’s the resolution to this leg of the story. I guess it’s all pretty funny.