The Woman on the Plane

The woman on the plane sitting next to me is working on a needlepoint as I write this. It’s one of those needlepoints that I know has a particular name but I can’t remember what it is. It has all the letters of the alphabet surrounded by what looks like brown and blue and rose-colored anemic flowers strung together by what’s supposed to be a green vine but in reality looks like something created by one of those old-school dot matrix printers.

All symmetry, no real shape, no reality whatsoever. With each pull of the needle her fat arm – which isn’t even on the armrest – bumps mine. Her chubby chin is bouncing up and down as she works a piece of gum faster than my fingers can type this.

A couple of times she’s peered over her wire-rimmed glasses and looked down at the armrest pretending to adjust the volume trying to see my laptop screen and what I’m up to. I want to write something that will shock her. Maybe “FUCK ME IN THE ASS WITH A STRAP ON” in 60 point type. But I doubt she has any idea what a strap on is or where it should go. Maybe I’ll write a little Bukowski poetry, something that has whore and cunt in the same sentence. Something about soiled underwear and falling asleep to the smell of your own vomit on the floor beneath you.

Here’s a good one:
she had an uncle who sniffed her panties by the firelight while eating crackerjack and muffins with honey…

Or this one:
are we going to the movies or not? she asked him. all right, he said. let’s go. I’m not going to put any panties on so you can finger-fuck me in the dark, she said. should we get buttered popcorn, he asked ...

But in truth I can’t write any of that because if her elbow doesn’t stop bumping me I’m going to grab one of the extra needles she has laid upon the tray table next to the Ziploc bag full of drab-colored threads and the purple-handled craft scissors and stab her in the fucking eye. It’ll be quick but take a little maneuvering because I’m going to have to somehow get those thick glasses off her wrinkled face. I’ll do that with my left hand and she’ll be so surprised by that she won’t see me grab for the needle with my right and maybe with her glasses off she wouldn’t be able to see me pick up the needle anyway.

I’m certain anyone else sitting in this seat would do exactly the same thing. One can only be systematically rubbed gently by a strange fat sweatshirt-clad elbow so many times before one snaps. And I’m pretty sure no jury would convict me. It’s a four-hour flight and I’ve only had one mini bottle of wine and I forgot my fucking zanax. And I just can’t stand seeing her fingers – nimble little sausages – thread another shade of awful green thread through one more needle eye.

The arm rest won’t even go all the way down because her meaty flank is spilling over the seat. If I push down hard enough maybe it’ll bruise her. She’ll be shocked I’m sure but jesus christ if I remember right I paid full price for this ticket and am entitled to more than 85 percent of my seat.

She’s looking at the needlepoint pattern now and I think she caught me peeking at it. My bad, those drab shades of greens all have very colorful names: light green, medium green, dark green.

What does her house look like? Surely it’s covered with needlepoints and it’s just after thanksgiving so I bet she’s counting the minutes until she gets home and can pull her collection of Santa dolls out of the box in the garage and place them cheerfully around the house. Then she’ll get to work with one of these needles and with the one good eye she has left she’ll use it to start stringing up some Orville Redenbacher.

Surely, there’s a mat outside her medium green painted door that says “Welcome Friends” and if there isn’t a pillow on her couch that she crocheted herself with an apple or a puppy or a “Bless this House” upon it, I will pull the emergency exit that is just on the other side of the fat woman’s fat husband and we will all be sucked to our deaths from 35,000 feet. And all I ask is that as we drop in perpetual somersaults to our deaths somewhere over Kansas City … all I ask is that this fat woman’s fat fucking elbow doesn’t come anywhere near me.

Where’s that damn flight attendant with that second tiny bottle of wine?