I seem to have entered a black void in which time has no meaning and three dimensions aren’t always a sure thing. This is all fine and peaches as far as I am concerned, but my mother becomes irate when I sleep past three-thirty. I think she’s just jealous that KITTY gets to stay home in a warm cocoon of too much caffeine and a permanent yawn while SHE has to get up at five and commute. Tough crackers, I say, fall out of bed, and go to sleep on the floor.

Wednesday I too must force my sleeping-pale carcass awake at five to catch a plane to far away, where we will torment French goats and fight each other to the death for cold Cokes should we stumble across any. I want to know what the hell kind of uncivilized backwater country has such a shortage of Coke products that they’re asking two bucks a can. Who gives a koi about foreign culture if you’re too sluggish and comatose from caffeine-deprivation to enjoy it? The Coke that you can find is invariably warm, but by that time I’m ready to slug it back were it as hot as the deadly coffee. Restaurants are happy to push, but you pay through the nose. I think it would be a brilliant investment to fill my carry-on with a case or two and sell them on street corners. Why risk smuggling drugs and the like when liquid legal Coke would bring a reasonably healthy profit margin?

[At the entrance to a Metro station]

MAN IN A TRENCH COAT: [whisper] Pssst, hey kid, c’mere.

SMALL FRENCH KID: [suspiciously] what?

COKE PUSHER: I gots something for ya.

KID: ummm….

PUSHER: Hey, the first can’s free….

KID: Well, maybe just one.

PUSHER: [evil cackle] Classic, Light, or Cherry?

KID: [takes a gulp] This shit tastes like it’s been cut!

PUSHER: What you talkin’ ‘bout?

KID: [second swallow] Undertaste of…Surge…? with shades of Pepsi…!? [hacking coughs] you trying to poison me?

PUSHER: What the hell?

KID: Hey man, just cause I’m ten doesn’t mean I can’t tell a 1996 Coke Light from last week’s rejected Fresca! [spits and runs away]

PUSHER: [mutters] Millions of brats in Paris, and I hadda pick a wine-taster’s kid.

 

Packing, in a word, sucks. I’m one of those people who feel very, very insecure if she doesn’t have six suitcases and a garment bag full of shoes with her at all times. Puddin’s mom is being very firm with the one-carry-on-and-the-evil-blue-backpack rule. Half of my collective luggage is full of hair products and makeup. My mother says, These people are never going to see you again in your life. What do they care if your nails are done or not? There’s a principle involved here that she’s missing completely. They don’t care. I care. I will know if I’m not wearing two kinds of eyeliner. I will know if my toenails don’t sparkle. I will know if my hair is not properly moussed, and it will make me cranky. If I have to haul fifty pounds of conditioner and four bottles of mascara around for three thousand miles, that’s my problem.

And at least I’ll be cute when they operate on my hernia.

 

Flying is one of those things. It’s not that I mind being held seven miles up in the air by forces which I do not understand (for all I know, there are eight hundred mylar helium balloons hidden in the wings) and would only make my head hurt. It’s mainly the large amounts of time spent in a small space with many other frantically claustrophobic people. It can be amusing at times. My first flying experience was our last little French excursion, and I ended up stuck in the middle of a row of five for eight hours. Puddin’s mom kept trying to make me drink things, and I kept refusing because I was afraid to go powder. The only tape I had within easy reach was ninety minutes of Punkin singing show tunes. Gonna wash that man right outta my hair….

The flight home started out better. I sat by Puddin and a window and, being bored, drew faces on my toes and made them dance for her. One of the stewardesses frightened me. She was rather solidly built with blonde Leia-like hair. I named her Helga. Helga was the hot-towel lady. This fascinated me. I think I used mine to wash the faces off my feet or something. I still don’t know what they’re for. To smear my eyes, perhaps, or to burn my fingers on. I heard one man politely decline his, and Helga growled, "Not on my plane, mister," and made him take it. I felt safer knowing that Helga was around, but not when she was very close.

We had to change planes in Philadelphia and sat on the runway for two hours. By this time, I wanted to be home very, very badly. Nature decided to spit in my face once more and stormed her heart out, so they re-routed us through North Carolina. I was firmly convinced we were going to die, as were most of us. Nikki, Amanda, and I were making bets on who was going to puke first. I fell asleep and never found out.

Last summer my sister and I flew to Atlanta to spend a week or so with my aunt. It was the brat’s first time on a plane, and she did not deal with it well. I had a whimpering thirteen-year-old wrapped around my leg for quite some time. The return trip was more amusing. I had about three carry-ons and was not going to check any of them. The poor man next to me ended up shoving one under his seat and making two go in the overhead compartment (big green eyes can be effective when used properly). I also was fiercely clutching my most treasured finding, Paul’s Tripping the Live Fantastic on vinyl. Triple disc. Lip-smacking gorgeous, but I think he thought I was going to beat him with it or something. He kept looking at me funny. It could have been the Q magazine with Paul on the cover with which I was smacking my sister. Since she had won our plastic lightsaber battle the night before.

I think my aunt was glad we were going home.