The Peanut Gallery

I am on a long flight back from Boston, exhausted from going to Boston one day and returning the next. But that's the way it goes. East Coast. West Coast.

I love the airports: watching people travel to a destiny, as if they are in a transition in life and the next plane determines their fate. Lovers kissing good bye. Mothers greeting grown children with memories of when they were just learning to walk. And businessmen with computers, beepers, cell phones, and watches that remind them they are late. They are always late ... for the next meeting, airplane, important promotion. Late for their next destiny. The lateness gives them permission to dash around the airport, with a precise and exact insanity that even schooling fish would admire.

My life is like these airplanes, full of changes, transitions from one phase to another. From home to my destiny, then back home. Or off to a new home all together, like a nomad. A bag lady with luggage that rolls, an upgrade to a shopping cart. The necessities: a toothbrush, running shoes, a computer with power, modem, and phone cords, and a credit card. Well, two credit cards because nobody takes American Express, even though you just shouldn't leave home without it.

On the flight back from Boston, I entertain myself by eating peanuts from tiny aluminum wrappers (with only enough peanuts to kill someone who is allergic to them, but not enough to even dent my hunger). After, I try dozing off in a half-attempted sleep that is nowhere close to quality REM. Who can sleep contorted in a Hoodini position, my knees so close to my chin I begin to worry something will break? Or with the flight attendants shoving large metal carts up and down the aisle with enough force to cause earthquake-force turbulence? Or with the guy next to me, oozing over into my seat, with his rather large body, making breathing noises which sound like something out of the movie Halloween III?

I pause. I should be nice to this guy next to me. After all, like me, he is in deep serious thought about the return to his current destiny. He's going home to unpaid bills, a wife who is less than happy to see him, and kids who have outgrown him. Back to a job he hates, sitting in traffic for hours to get to. Back to the dream he never quite reached. Maybe he wanted to be an Olympic athlete, a rock star, a cowboy. He's a victim of life and middle age.

Thinking of him, I pop open my peanuts. Maybe this will be some heroic act, better than Doctor Death himself could perform. I imagine...

He begs me to give him the peanuts, "Oh please lady, just a few dustings of those peanuts and it will be all over."

"Get your own peanuts. Just ring the bell." I reply.

"Oh, no. They won't give them to me. They know I am banned from peanuts. It's on my profile. They have it in the COMPUTER. They know. Oh please, just give me your peanuts. Just one peanut. Or two to make it faster. Please?"

I hold the bag out, then stop for my own selfishness. There's three more hours until we land and peanuts will make him ooze more.

I imagine ... his head slumps over to my seat. I try to climb around him to get out. My purse gets stuck on his right arm and the arm flaps lifelessly. People around me notice that he's not getting up. They look at me. They look at the empty peanut bag. I begin to panic....

"Look pal, nothing personal. I gotta get home. I don't want them to turn this flight around and leave me stuck somewhere on the East Coast. Besides, I ain't Kovorkian you know. I just ain't that heroic." He stops begging; he has been rejected before. I squirm and wriggle through another several hours of torture. I bolt for the door when we land, happy to be away from the peanuts. From him oozing over in to my space.

On the brief stopover at the hub airport, I stretch my legs, then go to a junk food place. I wolf down a greasy hot dog that reminds me of something a street vendor would sell at a baseball game. I chase it down with a DIET coke and a gallon of hot buttered popcorn. "Total girl logic," I laugh. As I hop on the next flight I feel just, well, just ugly. Not healthy or fat, just ugly.

There's another annoying passenger next to me, this time she doesn't ooze, but she chats. I try not to look at her. I open up the air vents so she will have to shout the whole time. I hope she gets the message.

After take off, the flight attendants come by. More peanuts. For a brief moment I panic. What if I develop allergies to peanuts and there's just no way off this flight? And the chatter next to me is the one to watch my final moments?

(She looks into my frantic eyes. I gasp my final breath with no time to say good bye. My hands clutch the Airfone: the American Express card doesn't work. She's talking. She's from Omaha, Nebraska. It's the only time of year she flies. She's going to visit her son. Her precious grandkids. That annoying daughter-in-law. My last super: the hot dog, the popcorn, the Diet Coke. I knew I should have gone for the candy bar too. My last picture:her holding out pictures of chatty little kids while I try to get air. She just keeps talking, yelling over the air vents.)

I am sweating as I take the peanuts and put them on her tray. "I got plenty of food at the airport. A hot dog with popcorn. My favorite."

She smiles as if I have now given her just the opening she is looking for to start a chat that lasts until baggage claim. I smile back.

"Better you than me," I think quietly. I look at my watch. I am late. Late for work and for a big promotion. Late for my next destiny.

PS... I was really close on the chatter. She's not from Omaha; she's from Kansas City. But she IS going to visit her grandkids. Disappointing that she didn't bring her wallet with the mini photo album. Disappointing that I didn't meet the family at the luggage claim. Such a small price to pay to save me .. to save me from peanuts.