Well, it was actually more like “Peculiar in the Plizzane;” he just had that—how you say—“gamey” flavor to him.
I was on a cross country flight to Detroit the other day. An older man came walking down the aisle of my super sonic DC 9 carrying a Gott cooler—size 24. (I do NOT know this by rote; it said so on the cooler.) For those of you who don’t know what size a Gott 24 cooler is, it is approximately the size of a VW Cabriolet Convertible.
I immediately noticed the man because of his cooler, but his blue “onesey” kept my eyes coming back for more. Technically, they were coveralls, but my wanderin’ eyes couldn’t keep themselves from his cooler ‘n’ coveralls. The wise flight attendant stepped up to the man to see if he needed assistance in proving that he should have luggage-checked the Gott 24 cooler, or left it home. He proclaimed that everything was fine and TURNED THE COOLER ON ITS SIDE to put it under the seat.
I don’t think I have to explain this to you, but turning a cooler on its side is a bad idea. I’m just sayin.’
Well I didn’t know what was in the cooler and I didn’t see anything leaking out of the overturned ice chest, so I watched throughout the flight to see what could be in there. Methought maybe it was a kidney, or a couple of hearts that desperately needed to arrive in Detroit to save conjoined twins. So my question: if indeed the cooler contained hearts or spleens or other unsavory organics, why did they hire the hayseed to deliver the package? As you can probably already see, I had dismissed the idea that the cooler held something important and turned back to my imagination to divine what could possibly be inside a huge cooler carried by a man in dark blue coveralls.
Then my imagination said, “Mmmmmm….Coveralls….”
After I had wrested my brain power back from my imagination, I started wondering why anyone would need to wear coveralls while traveling to Detroit. Is it possible there was a hog auction in Detroit that was near the airport and he was just on a one day out-n-back? Was he going to fix the plane in-flight if necessary? I mean, I WAS flying Northwest Airlines—home of the mechanic strike.
Despite my active imagination, what was inside the cooler was more disgusting than I could possibly have imagined:
Get this: inside the cooler was…lunch. I know, I know: “ANTI-CLIMACTIC!” you are shouting. Well let me describe lunch:
The man pulled out a butter sandwich on wheat and a jar of homemade juice. (“ANTI-CLIMACTIC! ANTI-CLIMACTIC!”) Imagine a half a cube of butter cut into pats and placed evenly on bread. Now imagine another piece of bread—voila! Butter sandwich. The juice was even better. Imagine a liquid the consistency of tomato juice. Now imagine it the color of raspberry jam. Now imagine the purple/red liquid in a mason jar. Now picture the mason jar with a plastic-wrap seal between the lid and the glass. Finally, imagine you can see a wine-colored “spittle-string” stretching from the jar to his lips when he takes a swig.
I think I have made the impression I wanted to make here, except I want to give you one more mental picture of the oddity of the man-in-the-iron-coveralls. Stretch your left arm straight out in front of you, palm up. Now, lightly curl your left-hand fingers and bend your elbow to a 90 degree angle so your forearm is pointing straight up. Finally, with the palm of your right hand, rub the far side of your forearm vigorously from the wrist to the elbow.
At the end of the flight, that’s what the coverall man was doing. Except when he did it, and I am not making this up, his sun-dried, excessively loose skin was shedding layers. To top it all off, said old-timer held his Gott 24 cooler in his lap and on the seat next to him during the landing. “Well, was it on the seat or on his lap?” you ask. Both. He switched from one to the other a number of times. Maybe he didn’t want the hearts to fall out if the pilot screwed up I guess. Now where was that wise flight attendant while he was holding a huge cooler on his lap during the landing? I mean, was she helping someone who fainted in the bathroom or….?
What was HE thinking of ME? I can only imagine.