My Flight Seat-Mate

So I get on the plane, right, and in the third row from the front there's an empty seat in the middle (of course in the middle, everyone nods), but there's a BAG there, with a CD player on top. So my first thought is, 'Oh, someone's already there,' but then I notice that the discman is attached to earphones. And those earphones are attached to a man in the windowseat, pointedly avoiding eye contact. So I ask the woman next to him, "Is that seat taken?" "No, it's not!" "Great!" Scowling, the man removes his belongings as I fling my stuff, including myself, in the direction of my new home for the next hour and a half.

Then it turns out the guy is a total tweaker. He was the human equivalent of a constant motion machine, limbs jerking, head wagging, hands rubbing his crotch, his running nose, his long, greasy hair. He cleared his throat every two and half minutes, in that mucusy gutteral way of a lifelong smoker, and when he wasn't jerking or rubbing or clearing, he was bent over in wracking coughs determined to spray everybody in a three foot radius, notably including my bare left arm, which I am about to amputate. He enjoyed singing along to his discman until the stewardess (YES, I just called her that, because I LIKE it) made him put it away 'just until we get in the air,' a clause he apparently didn't hear, judging by his obscenity-muttering throwing of his discman into his walgreens carry-on bag, which he then kicked violently under his seat. In fact, he was still muttering these obscenities fifteen minutes later, drowning out the announcement that electronic devices were acceptable again. I wanted to point this out to him, but then I was afraid of more singing and also--as I have learned on the buses of SF--STAY INVISIBLE WHEN SURROUNDED BY CRAZY. Once he forgot his discman existed, he chose to spend the next hour of the flight talking to himself, his alcohol-laden breath exhuming with every deprecating snort and mutter. It was like sitting hip to hip with the Tenderloin. His clothes had not been washed in days, maybe weeks, and his entire system was screaming for a fix. Meanwhile, my entire system was screaming for a bottle of purell and maybe, I don't know, a torch with which to burn everything that came into contact with him or his mucus, up to and including my bag and everything I was wearing.

But now I am safe and sound at Mindy's, where everything is clean and my comforter is white white white and my headboard is dark dark brown and all is well in the world. Please excuse me while I leap into a burning hot shower to scrub off an epidermal layer or two or fifteen.