Sophia Loren with meat balls

Just as you thought the travel adventures were over —they have only just begun!

I had good plane-seat juju and got a whole center row to myself. Across the aisle on one side was a large man totally decked out in one of those African tribal muumuus with fish and giraffes printed on it in bright colors. In my own non-pc mind, I named him Zulu. In front of him there seemed to be a sourish, overweight lesbian with a bad haircut who wasn't happy about something, or everything.

In stark contrast, on the other side of the aisle was a stunning French woman of a certain age who could have been Sofia Loren's sister, perfectly tailored and accessorized with lots of diamonds, an elegant scarf, and perfectly made up and coiffed. Every time I looked in her direction she was touching up her makeup. She never peed. The. Whole. Nine. Hour. Flight. 

We were served an elegant French-Moroccan lunch of lamb meatballs, sauce and couscous. There was also some kind of freaky salad of shredded unidentifiable veggies with a poached egg on top and a baguette of course, with lots of butter and for desserts,  applesauce AND crème Brulé.  It was all nice and everything, but I'm SO over couscous. I just left the land of couscous. I’m gonna get a whopper and a Dr. Pepper when I get off this plane.

As soon as we started to eat, the turbulence kicked in, and suddenly we were eating on a rollercoaster. The food slid back in forth and it became a game, trying to sip between dips and navigate food to my mouth without poking my eye out with the plastic fork. 

I looked around to assess the morale of my fellow passengers; Zulu had mixed all the food on the tray into one slop-like mixture that looked like something Linda Blair had concocted. He was busy frantically shoveling it in like it was his last meal, all except for the meatballs and some of the sauce/applesauce/cous-cousveggie glop which he decided to save for later. He asked me to stick it in the overhead compartment, which was easier for me to access. Several hours later all was calm and I was happily watching The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Suddenly, the lesbian, who had been watching some violent movie, abruptly stood up in the half-dark aisle and said, "WHAT THE FUCK?!” 

It seemed that the sauce from the meatballs, had somehow lost its top and was oozing out of the overhead, directly onto her bad haircut.  OMG it was all I could not to run and hide. Thank god she had not seen ME put the meatballs over her head, and had no one in particular to blame for the glop attack. Zulu and I stifled our laughter until she had huffed to the front of the plane, returning some time later with wet hair and an even more sour expression on her face. 

Zulu went to ask for more meatballs and returned with a sexy French boy flight attendant who cleaned out the overhead bin over the very grumpy lesbian. I was so grateful it was not in MY overhead bin with new white Prada bags. I popped a sleeping pill and awoke just in time for landing. I had seen enough drama for one flight!