The Perils of Frequent Flying, a Horror Story
Readers, I was on United flight 1101 last night from Cleveland to Chicago, in seat 13D. Let me tell you, that's a prime route and a prime seat. Or so I thought.
The first thing I noticed was when the fingernails touched my shoulder, or more accurately wrapped around my shoulder, from behind me and to my right. From 14E. I could feel the fingernails touch my shoulder individually (touch-touch-touch-touch) even though she only lightly gripped my shoulder. Something was very wrong. "Are those seats taken?" queried the just-gravelly-enough-to-be-startling voice from 14E, as a couple of the nails left my shoulder to point to empty 13E and 13F next to me. "Not yet," I replied. She thanked me, and the nails left my shoulder. My seat bounced back and down as she grabbed the back of my seat to brace herself while she unwedged her enormous girth from her assigned seat. I got up and moved into the aisle to let her pass. She was splendidly large, so big you could lose her head in the folds of her sweater-suit as it struggled to cover her outsized torso. She raised the seat arm between 13E and 13F, and sat down in 13F and half of 13E. I sat, too. We took off, and I waited for the man to bring me my tomato juice and snuck glances at the nails that had disturbed my shoulder a few moments before. They were so long that they had developed a curvature of their own, far sharper than anything imposed on them by the living flesh of her fingers and hands. They were all themed a dark gray, and every second enormous fingernail was solidly painted. But oh, the ones in the middle. Some were marbled, painted with winding white veins on dark gray like some sort of finger-borne edifice. Some had texture -- clusters of silver and white and blue beads shining like treasures on the dark gray background. I was horrified, but I was transfixed. I followed them as they impaled the buttons on her miniature and grimy travel Yahtzee, as they cut into her hands as she gripped her 7-up. I watched as the reading light prismed through the 7-up bubbles and off the ice, and I recoiled as it danced off the baubles on her crookedly and artificially extended pinky finger. Turbulence, indeed.
The first thing I noticed was when the fingernails touched my shoulder, or more accurately wrapped around my shoulder, from behind me and to my right. From 14E. I could feel the fingernails touch my shoulder individually (touch-touch-touch-touch) even though she only lightly gripped my shoulder. Something was very wrong. "Are those seats taken?" queried the just-gravelly-enough-to-be-startling voice from 14E, as a couple of the nails left my shoulder to point to empty 13E and 13F next to me. "Not yet," I replied. She thanked me, and the nails left my shoulder. My seat bounced back and down as she grabbed the back of my seat to brace herself while she unwedged her enormous girth from her assigned seat. I got up and moved into the aisle to let her pass. She was splendidly large, so big you could lose her head in the folds of her sweater-suit as it struggled to cover her outsized torso. She raised the seat arm between 13E and 13F, and sat down in 13F and half of 13E. I sat, too. We took off, and I waited for the man to bring me my tomato juice and snuck glances at the nails that had disturbed my shoulder a few moments before. They were so long that they had developed a curvature of their own, far sharper than anything imposed on them by the living flesh of her fingers and hands. They were all themed a dark gray, and every second enormous fingernail was solidly painted. But oh, the ones in the middle. Some were marbled, painted with winding white veins on dark gray like some sort of finger-borne edifice. Some had texture -- clusters of silver and white and blue beads shining like treasures on the dark gray background. I was horrified, but I was transfixed. I followed them as they impaled the buttons on her miniature and grimy travel Yahtzee, as they cut into her hands as she gripped her 7-up. I watched as the reading light prismed through the 7-up bubbles and off the ice, and I recoiled as it danced off the baubles on her crookedly and artificially extended pinky finger. Turbulence, indeed.
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