Plane Talking

You know the person on your flight that coughs uncontrollably, blows their nose like they were keeping the beat to "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun", and then hands your their germ-laden cup to pass to the flight attendant's trash? Sitting beside them is an ordeal - but being "that person" is like bad karma with a broken mirror.

Feeling pretty good as I boarded the plane, I squeezed my way into the middle seat between two neatly dressed business-types. As soon as I sat down, I felt an illness starting to spread rapidly through my body. Before I could mouth "how weird" my stomach started churning loudly announcing that it had a gift to give me. The barf bag was a god send. Silently, from both sides,two new bags were handed to me.

Soon my nose started running like it was in a race with my bladder. After running out of tissue, I discretely crumpled up some notebook paper and pressed it against my nose. Note to self - don't try this again.

I was getting ready to apologize to my seat mates when deep in my throat a cacophony of raspy uncontrollable coughs struck me speechless. The more I tried to quiet them by swallowing hard and breathing deeply, the worse my hacking became. My eyes decided to join in and glazed over with so much fluid that I couldn't see inside my purse to search for my last cough drop. The men beside me were actively avoiding eye or body contact.

Grabbing a pen and my last sheet of notebook paper, I wrote "This is not me. I think I've been inhabited by the ghost of someone who died on this plane. The real me is a healthy, well-mannered (single) person". Unfortunately, before I could hand it to window seat man, the drippings from my face openings made the words unreadable.

Not to be left out, my bladder chose to assert its will by demanding to be emptied several times during the flight. If I did not do its bidding quickly enough, my teeth began to ache in protest.

I was silently praying that a baby would start crying, someone would have a fit of machine-gun style sneezing or there would be a medical emergency on the flight. But no, everyone was quiet - except me. They were probably all struck mute by the fear that a woman with swine flu and TB was on board.

When we finally landed, my symptoms stopped as suddenly as they had started. Maybe the ghost couldn't leave the plane? It was too late to try to explain myself, and no one would get close enough to hear me if I did. Somewhere there is an evil spirit on a plane ready to inhabit another unsuspecting person. And I hope that person isn't sitting near me.