A movie came out a few years back. One of those Samuel L. Jackson is a bad @ss kind of guy. It was called Snakes on a Plane. I never saw the whole thing, but I got the gist from just scanning the channels.
There were a bunch of snakes. They were on a plane. The plane was in the air. Sam Jackson was on the plane too. Let the games begin.
But today. I couldn’t help but a LEAST think of the title of the movie. Snakes on a Plane.
Oh. Snakes come in many shapes and sizes. Today, one just looked like an obnoxious middle-aged blond in jeans two-sizes too small.
Okay. Here is the scenario in a nutshell.
We flew today. On a plane. We were sitting at the front of the plane, along with a half-dozen others. Then, abruptly, and out of nowhere, a woman… with that frizzed-out-kind of blonde hair, jeans too tight, dressed younger-than-what she-actually-was kind of look…. … talking loudly on a cell phone… which was tucked… shoulder to ear…. entered our day.
She had an over-sized suitcase…much larger than the allowable carry on. She was jamming it time and time again into the overhead bin…. directly across the aisle from me. Several people watched… with jaws dropped. Finally she wedged it into the bin… cracking the overhead bin door. But alas…. it still hung out by a good 4 or 5 inches. So she shoved on it harder… and then tried slamming the door on it.
Meanwhile…. she never missed a syllable of her cell phone conversation.
Holy crap. I finally said… “Spatially, I can see that just isn’t going to fit.” She turned around and glared at me. A thousand-dagger-deaths of a stare.
At that point, the flight attendant tackled the woman and directed her to another bin. The woman huffed… and bumped into a another passenger. As the flight attendant unjammed the bag… and got it down into the aisle for the passenger… she smiled at me. Mary said loudly… “Don’t help her. Make her deal with it herself.” And the guy behind us said… “You didn’t see me jumping up to help her.”
She was just a terribly self-absorbed person. I was dumbfounded by her lack of awareness of anyone but herself. After she cleared the aisle, the 100 or so people which were backed up in the hallway were able to board the plane.
She made no apologies. She had done no wrong. In fact, it seemed the other way around. It appeared that it was the world… all against her! Again, she glared at those around her.
I know one thing about all of this. I never, ever, ever want to be like that woman. Not even remotely. And I hope I never have.
And if I ever act that way, I hope someone… someone who loves me… will say… Polly. You are acting like a snake on a plane.
I’ve seen the snakes. And I would rather not be one. I am thinking in this case, earlier today…. St. Patty drove ’em out of Ireland and into suburbia. On planes. With over-sized suitcases filled with conceit.