The Journey
by Tommy
I’ve been visualizing my traveling to Boston over the couple of days. After Mom sees me off, I enter the boarding tunnel and into whatever the next four days holds for me. The perpetually smiling air hostess (with the smile that surely must be stapled on to stay in place) takes my ticket and directs me to Seat 26C (an aisle seat, mega-win!). I slide my rug-sack underneath my seat and throw my cane into one of the overhead bins.
On 3 out of the 4 European flights I’ve taken since starting using Aislinn, I’ve managed to convince whoever’s on Overhead Bin Duty onboard to allow me to keep my cane beside me seat, alternating between playing the “but it’s my security blanket!” card and the less-cool “is it okay if I keep it on me, actually?” card. However, this is America. When you’re involved with this country, you play by their rules. You’ve only made it as far as Seat 26C because they haven’t found a way of arresting you on terrorism charges. Plus, I’m not the only one with cards. They have the cruel ‘do it my way or don’t enter my country’ card, which trumps all. Bleh, no fair.
Once everyone’s in their seat, I’ll make idle small-chat with whoever looks the least boring. Yes, I’m traveling alone. No, this isn’t my first time in America. No, I haven’t seen the Statue of Liberty and no, I would not like one of your sweets. Why? Well, even if I could eat chocolate (no, it’s not some queer dietary need), I wouldn’t eat some of your foul, American what-passes-for chocolate.
On that note, I think I’ll invent some weird medical qualm that prohibits the eating of chocolate. Humans are strange creatures, and to some of them, ‘no reason’, isn’t really a reason at all, when it quite obviously is. The thought of just not eating it for a year for fun is annoyingly alien to them. So, from now on, I suffer from Cohen’s disease*, a rare condition which means that I’ll die within 32 minutes if I eat chocolate. Having said that, the excuse shall only be necessary for another 6 weeks, until New Year!
Annoyingly, I never mastered the art of sleeping on planes. (Dad has, which makes it all the more annoying. I swear, the man has a switch in his pocket that makes him sleep. It’s honestly like a tap that one can turn on at will. Remind me to search his trouser pockets before I go for that all important remote). Worse still, I won’t even feel remotely (excuse the pun) drowsy. Granted, that’s handy for when I land and I’ll be jet-lag free, but it’s annoying when you’re wide awake on a plane that smells of feet. Then of course, I’ll be halfway through the House M.D. episode I’m watching when Life Law #5,097 will kick in…
..so I’ll just stick to reading and listening to music.
So that’s the outward journey. I like to think the homeward one will follow the course it did in a dream I had at the weekend – I say goodbye to Patrick and/or John and go down the tunnel to the plane. As I’m about to board the plane, I ask what the plane number is before going ‘Crap! This isn’t my plane!’ before running off before anyone can question my story. I take the subway back to Harvard and hide there for as long as possible, optionally extending my hiding period by moving in with random students in return for house elf duties.
:)
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* A name I just picked randomly – no relationship to Mark or Leonard.