The In-Flight Voice-Tuesday December 14th

I went to LA last week for work. I flew on Southwest airlines, which I consider to be the finest of the crappy airlines. (Spirit Is the crappiest, in my experience. In fact, on the Spirit flight I took there were no less than 50 crackers ground into the floor. Children were encouraged to run screaming up and down the aisles by their exhausted parents and ignored by the glassy-eyed flight attendants. The headphones featured a jagged edge that cut my ear, causing me to panic about the blood poisoning I was definitely going to get from the recycled-from-an-Indonesian-garbage-dump complimentary headphones.) Paying an extra $10 to ensure my place in the “A” group, I found myself a primo aisle seat towards the front of the plane.

While I waited for my fellow passengers to get settled and prepare for take off, I relaxed into the din of the plane. Babies murmured, people bumped into armrests and excused themselves, suitcase were shoved into overhead compartments. But above it all I heard a Voice.

“WELL THAT’S MY STEP MOTHER FOR YOU. SHE DOESN’T HAVE A WIDE RANGE OF SKILLS BUT IS ESPECIALLY GOOD AT MONEY GRUBBING. HA HA.”

I leaned back into my seat and turned my head slightly to see the owner of the Voice. I woman in her early 20′s sat in the middle row, two aisles behind me. She was aiming the Voice at the woman next to her, who looked a little worried.

“HONEST TO GOD YOU WOULDN’T BELIEVE THE KIND OF CRAP SHE BRINGS HOME. SHE SHOPS LIKE IT’S HER CAREER, BUT SHE’S ALREADY GOT A FULL TIME JOB AS A DUMB WHORE. HA HA”

I couldn’t hear her seatmate’s response, because she spoke in a normal tone of voice. The owner behind the Voice spoke like she was in a summer stock performance of Death of a Salesman and needed to project and enunciate to save the performance. I took my book out of my bag and tried to read.

“THE THING ABOUT STEP MOTHERS IS THAT EVEN IF YOU LIKE THEM THEY HATE YOU BECAUSE YOU’RE USING UP SOME OF THE MONEY. AT LEAST THAT’S BEEN MY EXPERIENCE. I DIDN’T EVEN GET A NEW CAR THIS YEAR FOR CHRIST’S SAKE.”

I peeked again at the Voice’s seatmate. She was now wild-eyed with terror, her forehead flecked with sweat, writhing in her seat as if she could escape the wall of sound that trapped her in 14C. I tried to make eye-contact with her, hoping to offer her some solace in knowing that she was not alone- we were all being tortured by the Voice.

I tried to doze off and dreamed about people chasing me through canyons, shouting at me about their step-mother. I jerked awake in time to hear the Voice say “I’M GLAD CHRISTMAS IS COMING UP THOUGH SO AT LEAST I CAN ACTUALLY POINT TO HER GIFTS AND MY GIFTS AND FORCE MY FATHER TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT SHE GETS MORE”

Indeed, isn’t that what Christmas is all about? Allowing one’s family the opportunity to fight over who gets a bigger pile of crap, and how that crap-pile translates into love?

She talked the whole flight. It was impossible to tune her out, but my brain took pity on my and blacked out the other details on her monologue. I couldn’t help but wonder why her seatmate didn’t press the button for the flight attendant, and ask for a newspaper that she could roll up and use to hit the Voice over the head repeatedly.