Onion Plane Man

Why is it that the people who fly first class these days look like they couldn’t put two nickels together to ride the bus (or however much the bus costs)?

I am stuck in coach, always in close proximity to the guy who has decided that his one personal carry-on is going to be a foot long hoagie with extra raw onions. I sort of have this thing about food. I really believe that it should be a single sensory experience. I don’t like to smell food, and I absolutely don’t like to hear people eating food. But that’s another story.

This time, it was the guy directly behind me that decided to open his onion hoagie about an hour into the flight. I could see my husband tensing up when he could tell that I smelled the onions, wondering if I was going to go bat-shit crazy or ape-shit crazy, or, possibly, ignore the whole fiasco if I was engrossed enough in the US magazine. Well, no amount of “news” about Charlie Sheen and his shenanigans in Aspen could divert me from the smell taking over the airplane.

I asked my husband if he had a plastic spoon. I could tell by the look on his face that he thought I was going to use said spoon to maim or otherwise threaten the onion man. Which was quite hilarious. A plastic spoon?

No, I needed a plastic spoon because I was teething. That’s right, teething. Something that the dentist did during my 2hr/$900 visit caused my wisdom teeth to move and want to break free. My dentist tells me that I have an unusually large mouth and that he probably won’t need to take them. Anyway, right now, it just feels really good to chew on plastic spoons. It’s also just a classy look.

For some reason, my husband was not packing plastic spoons. Frankly, if he had been, I highly doubt he would have handed one over. But I swear I had no thoughts of maiming onion man with a plastic spoon. My teeth were taking precedent over his outrageous insensitivity.

On the plane ride back, there was actually no onion man. I sat back to enjoy a little nap, but first decided to try a little of the hand cream that the sales lady at Nordstrom insisted I take. And do you know what happened? I became that lady. I became the lady that stunk up the plane with hand cream.