On this particular day, the new airline restrictions had just been put into place, which left me in a foul mood holding a Ziploc with my passport and some sleeping pills. I was standing in line with my Yankees hat on when a very cute boy (also in a Yankees hat) smiled at me. He left his spot ahead of me in line and came back.
In a British accent he asked, “What’s in your Ziploc?”
Me, stunned and impressed: “Drugs, explosives and porn.”
Says the newly-christened Instant Upgrade: “Sounds like you need a drink.”
Me: “We’re boarding.”
Instant Upgrade: “We have until the end of the line.”
Fast forward a few minutes: he’s pounding a double rum and coke at 9 pm in the airport bar next to our gate. It wasn’t too much of a shock as I have lived in the UK and know that guys need at least one or two in them before they can talk to girls. The fact that he came up to me is miraculous, and I know he must have had a few before he saw me. I had a sparkling water and take my sleeping pills, 3 of them, without really thinking about what I was doing. It was a sold-out flight and I was in pigs and chickens so I was going to sleep through the red-eye from take-off to landing.
He tells me that he splits his time between London and New York, clearly doing something financial. I ask him what he has in his Ziploc. He holds it up and shows me his gummy worms, which I tell him I that I love, so he gives me the whole bag.
Instant Upgrade: “That means that I’m going to have to come visit you during the flight.”
We hear that it’s the last call for boarding and get on the plane. I relax into my horrible seating conditions and Instant Upgrade settles into First Class. About two seconds pass. Literally--everyone else is still getting on the darn plane. Instant Upgrade comes back looks at my seat number above my head and asks for a gummy worm. Another two seconds after Instant Upgrade has gone back to his seat, the stewardess comes down the isle and tells me the following:
“Miss, I’m so sorry but you are in the wrong seat. You’re in first class.”
I get up to first and the seat next to Instant is empty. I squeeze in and he explains that it was almost a disaster because the stewardess had asked for my last name and that he had to tell her that I was his girlfriend and only went by my first name, so to just say that. Somewhere just about this moment I begin to get a little bit drowsy. We were about to take off and Instant is telling me about his sister has kids and how he is ready to settle down, is successful and 32 and wants to meet an amazing girl. I fill him in on some cute babble and he’s smitten and I’m just exhausted. I still find him very cute, but now I’m trapped in the darn seat next to him so I get uncomfortable, just like when someone tries to hold my hand at dinner when I really just want to cut my salmon properly. I’m almost always a big fan of the holding hands at night in the summer, or walking across the Brooklyn Bridge—especially when you are with the most anti-hand-holder, but come on, there’s a limit.
Somewhere between him giving me his card with twelve numbers and ten emails to contact him on in both cities, I pass out—for the entire flight. I woke up at one point and Instant was kind of leaning on me sleeping and trying to hold my hand, in my lap. First of all, I was already uncomfortable because of the personal space issue, but my lap? I put my crossed arms across my chest and put my hands in my armpits, pulled the blanket across so tightly that it was like a chastity belt (which in thinking about it could be a great re-invention, sold with cell-phone locks).
I get off the plane with Instant and get through the passport lines, he is really chatty and I’m really still under the fuzzy sleep feeling of sleep aids, and get excited that I am an American citizen and he is English, but then, he waits for me. This clearly annoys me because I have to get straight to the bathroom, get my suit-dress on and get in a car to a meeting. As sweet as this guy was, minus the hand-holding, he was already a big fan and all I really did was fall asleep and tell him about why I loved New York, plus I don’t like people to interrupt my routines in airports.
So we get to the baggage claim. Mine comes off very quickly because I always do the “I have to run to a meeting right away” and that I have a great airline status because of constant commuting. Now do I wait with Instant or do I go? I give him a pout and say that I have his contact details and I’m so sorry he waited, but I need to go. He tells me to call him tonight, I smile and run out.
I still feel a little guilty that I left his numbers and emails in the seat-back pocket.
Nice blog post but you burned him?