Candy is Not Meant to Be Up in the Air

With a long distance relationship, there is a great deal of flying. Mostly it's me flying, since my schedule is more flexible than his. There is only one teensy problem. Traveling on a plane makes me turn into a creature that is nearly unrecognizable to me.

It used to be that flying was enough of an adventure for me that I could mentally put aside the discomforts. I always booked a window seat because it was such a big deal to look downward at all the little ant farm towns and bed-bug sized cars moving along tiny strands of hair highways. Now that I've become a more frequent traveler, flight has turned into a combination of a House of Mirrors and a feverish childhood nightmare while in the merciless throes of the mumps.

I no longer want a window seat. The fading thrill of the view has been overshadowed by the deep social discomfort of having to ask 2 people to get up so Candy can go take her diminutive little bladder for a walk. But even when the bladder is peacefully napping, I find more and more that I need to get out of my seat. Now. It suddenly hits me just how cramped I am into a space the size of a toaster oven, and I must feign interest in the bathroom in order to take a leisurely stroll.

My claustro-panic has recently produced a new behavior. It caught even me off guard. When I get into the bathroom, the tiny, ridiculous upright beige coffin of a bathroom, I get the irresistible impulse to take off my shirt. A desperate, momentary craving to have my private Candy time, away from the piercing stares of the passengers who look up to see who is going to annoy them by walking past. And since I never wear a bra when I travel, insistent upon every speck of comfort I can get, there I am, staring at my glazy eyes in the bathroom mirror, as my surprised nipples look around like fugitives to make sure we're in hiding. This last trip, I added another step to the unusual bathroom behavior, and put one arm straight up and the other in an across-the-chest salute, which is an old cheerleader stance from my high school days. I looked at my idiotic self in the mirror and said out loud "What are you doing?"

Once I had splashed my face with water and put my clothes back on, I started the long trudge to my seat. In row 9. Which means I had a very long return trip from my designated bathroom. God forbid I hurl myself into the business class area and use theirs, tainting their superb Jackie-O lives with detestable coach class cooties. Nosiree. That there section is only for the high class fokes. For example, the prissy and overly-preened gel-haired gay-boy who was sitting in the first row. I'm OK with gays. I'm not OK with a gaggingly cologned nancyboy who, very loudly, says this into his cell phone as people with the cheap seats tromp by him like depressed cattle:

"Oh my f---ing God, I have done everything on planes. Seriously. Oh Jesus, I could tell you things. You just have to find a good crew that'll watch out for you, and you can do anything. Like, I just hooked up big time with a flight attendant on my L.A. to Phoenix flight. And you know how short that flight is! That galley will never be the same for him again."

I admit it. I wanted him dead. Dead and bagged and tossed onto the tarmac. Never to foul the airways again with his various strains of disease, physical and mental. But more importantly, never to horrify an elderly man next to him, like he was doing right that minute. The old guy was captive and at the mercy of the endless sex-babble shooting from the lipglossed mouth to his right. This boy had done everything on a plane. Except perhaps ever displaying any tact.

As I walked back to row 9 from the tail of the plane, I got the house of mirrors feeling. It starts when I glance forward and see the many, many heads of human beings in rows. Too many. An unreasonable number. To avoid seeing the rows of crania, I look down to see what people are doing. And there are all these little worlds. Worlds of tray tables filled with half-eaten turkey sandwiches, and sudoku books and abandoned headphones, and computer screens playing DVDs of "Lost" and various Disney fare. Some people are sleeping, slouched against the arm of a companion, unaware. The intense overhead lights bearing down make each space look like a squalid little Horton Hears a Who world that I should not be seeing. But I'm looking anyway. Finally I'm back at my seat, my place. The woman next to me looks up from her crossword puzzle. I put my head back and close my eyes and wonder how long I can make it until I have to get up again and face myself in the inner sanctum of the bathroom. Topless.