Leporsy! It might have been leporsy!

How's everyone doing? Good? Great. I know I'm not updating as much as some of you would like...I'm trying to figure out how to juggle the blog along with other professional obligations and also the rest of my life. Not to mention it's gorgeous outside and I want to roll my naked body in sunlight and warmth before fall steals it away. You understand, right? Of course you do. Except for you. And you can just suck it.

So last week I finally came home from my thousandth trip down to SoCal. This time it was for wedding planning, and it was the most wedding-plan-iest five days ever. The sheer volume of things that we GOT DONE was staggering, but I won't go into detail as I'm sure at the mention of the word "wedding" most of the men who read this started to nod off and think of boobies.

By Monday I had reached a state of exhaustion so profound that I was unable to do much more than gum baby-food and drool politely as I listened to my mother take every possible opportunity to announce how WARM we were at all times due to the relentless HEAT. I knew it was time to go home. I was dropped off at the airport and made my way through security and to the gate without incident which, if you are a regular reader, you know requires a simultaneous act of God and Congress.

It was a late afternoon flight on Southwest meaning that only half of the flight was full. Lovely since it would ensure that I didn't have to sit next to anyone. I boarded early and secured an aisle seat in the seventh row which is important because, ahem, access to the toilets. Minutes later I had my nose buried in my magazine and was startled to feel a hand on my shoulder. I looked up to see a woman and her mother standing in the aisle next to me. I didn't actually see much of the mother who was swathed in robes made up of enough fabric to hide a small herd of goats. The daughter was in her 40's and emanated the unmistakable smell of BO and cumin. In a heavily accented voice she said, "May we sit in this row?" I looked back at the yawning mass of empty seats behind me and said, I'm sure frantically, "Wouldn't you like more room? To sit in a row with no one in it?" "No," she replied, "we'd like to sit here. She kept her hand on my shoulder and I noticed that her forearms were covered with an odd and painful looking red rash accompanied by a few open sores. I involuntarily itched my own and gagged slightly. (I am from a fundamentally over-hygenic family. I grew up in a house of unquestioned daily showers, weekly nail clippings [outside. OUTSIDE!] and twice-sterilized needles for splinters. Wounds of any sort were scrubbed and then addressed immediately with heavy bandaging, prayer and the threat of disembowelment if any fluid of any type leaked onto my mothers furniture or linens). Not wanting to be a jerk, I prepared to get up and make room for them to sit.

I stood to allow the mother to pass through while the daughter held up the rest of the passengers and she loaded their obviously heavy luggage into the overhead bins. I couldn't move as I was wedged between the mother who for some reason wouldn't pass and the daughter. The mother held onto my arm with one of her leathery hands and gesticulated at me, obviously unable to speak English. "Yes, you can pass," I said to her, pointing at the window seat. But she kept pointing at my seat. Confused, I said, "I'm sitting there. MINE." The stewardess, impatient as she had been trying to help the daughter maneuver their unwieldy luggage overhead said with some impressive volume, "YOU ALL NEED TO SIT DOWN...NOW." The daughter, sweat beading on her upper lip, whispered something to her mother and they shuffled into their seats. I was about to reach down for my purse and things so that I could move to an empty row but was stopped by the stewardess who said, "I'm sorry but we're running late. You need to take your seat." I whimpered, looking back at all of the empty rows behind me and sat down next to the daughter. The smell of cumin was overwhelming. Her forearm touched mine. I thought I felt my throat start to close up.

They were conferring with one another in hushed tones and as the flight attendants began the safety check the daughter turned to me and said, "My mother would prefer your seat." I just looked at her blankly. "Your seat," she tried again, "she would like to sit there." I didn't really know what to do with this information as I too wanted to sit in my seat - that's why I had chosen it in the first place. Suddenly, the mothers earlier hand gestures made sense. I replied, "I always sit on the aisle. If your mother wanted a similar seat, you should have moved father back into the plane." She turned to her mother, presumably to break the bad news and what came out of her mothers mouth was language so loud and so painful that I imagined the sounds to resemble what might issue forth from a pig being run through a wood chipper.

So I put my headphones on. And went back to my magazine. GOD. 80 minutes to go.

The plane took off. After it had leveled (at which time I was going to switch seats) the pilot came on to inform us that there would be prolific turbulence and to stay seated unless there was a dire emergency. I must have inadvertently killed a unicorn in a previous life as I was now convinced that God hated me. 70 minutes to go.

Apparently "turbulence" doesn't translate well as the daughter decided that this would be an excellent time to give herself a manicure. The only mercy was that the smell of the polish overpowered that of her body and I started to think that perhaps slipping into a chemical induced coma would at least make the trip go by faster. I looked on in disbelief as she swabbed away, often missing the nails entirely due to the bumpy ride. The effect was that she had been finger painting at a whore house. The stewardess came over after her left hand was done and said, "People are complaining about the smell. You need to put that away. Now." More earsplitting conversation between the two women. The daughter scratched at her infected forearm and flakes of dry skin floated between our seats. I wondered what it would be like to die of anaphylactic shock. Was my will in order? 52 minutes to go.

The attendant left and after approximately 8 minutes, out came the nail polish again. She'd made it to her middle finger when the turbulence really set in and she lost control of both bottle and brush. The bottle slid elegantly across her table and landed, open end down, into her purse. HA! BUT! THE BRUSH! It flew gently from her fingers and in a delicate arc landed first on my bare thigh and then slid down my calf, leaving a trail of bright red polish before disappearing into the depths. This didn't seem to bother her in the slightest since she was more concerned with the contents of her purse which she was spreading out all over her tray table, smearing polish as she went, giving her area the look of a mini crime scene. BUTMYLEGOMYGOD was covered. The stewardess chose that moment to come back our direction, perhaps lured by the pungent smell of nitrocellulose and disobedience. She assessed the situation in one disdainful look and said, "PUT THE POLISH AWAY NOW." She turned to me and said, "I'll be right back," and returned moments later with a rag soaked in something. "It will take the polish off in one wipe," she said. I swiped successfully and then handed it off to the daughter who took it from me and said, "Where is my brush? It came to you, yes?"

Indeed. 30 minutes to go.

The "fasten-seat-belts" light finally went off and I was able to escape for a few moments to use the restroom. The water in the tiny sink didn't reach a point I thought scalding enough to wash my arms with and so I sat on the closed toilet seat for a few moments longer than necessary wondering if I could sustain a landing here in the bathroom. Someone knocked. I returned to my seat. The daughter had commandeered my magazine. I said nothing, especially after she put the magazine on her tray table and leaned onto it with her arms. I'm sure I heard the magazine weep. 13 minutes to go.

We landed. Thankfully. I pulled pulled out my phone as the plane taxied to our gate to turn it on. The daughter turned to me and asked, "What is the time, please?" I resisted the urge to shout, "MOTHERFUCKING COCKTAIL HOUR!" and instead answered her question. She reported this to her mother who gesticulated towards me wildly and screeched something at her daughter. She turned back to me and said, "We need to use your phone."

"Why?" It seemed like a pretty reasonable question, but she looked at me as though I had just run over a baby.
"My mother would like to call my father back east to tell him that we have landed safely, yes?" she said, reaching for my phone.
I pulled it out of her reach reflexively. "No," I said. "There will be payphones on the concourse. I'm not comfortable with you calling on my phone long distance." I had just spent the last 90 minutes praying for the sweet release of a stroke or teleportation. Allowing her mother to all on my phone long distance would require at least a drink. Or heroin.
"You are terribly unkind," she said with a grimace. She scratched her arms.
At that moment the man in the seat across the aisle who had heard this exchange leaned over and said, "She isn't unkind. She's sat patiently next to you for this entire flight. You've made everyone around you completely miserable. Let her be."

I almost French-kissed that man right then and there, but we had reached our gate and I couldn't get off of that plane fast enough. I ran through the concourse to the closest ladies room and washed every bit of exposed skin with hot water and soap. I then hyperventilated into a toilet seat protector.

I later relayed this story to my mother who was still pool side in San Diego. After a long pull on her iced tea she said, "Well, the Lord was looking out for you since you didn't contract her flesh eating disease. It's SO HOT HERE. Open some wine. Or bathe in it. Alcohol is a great disinfectant. DID I MENTION THE HEAT?"

Next time I travel, it's by blimp.