the flights - installment 2

back into the fray. the flight from singapore to dubai was a bit over seven hours. again percy slept thru take off and landing. the most memorable thing about this flight was the abomination sitting next to us. christ!! how does he live with himself? i'll explain. we took our seats in the bassinet row and wondered whether a third person would be put with us. we were prepared to feel sorry for someone that percy might keep awake and that we would be clambering over every time we needed to get out of the row. no sympathy wasted on this fellow! in fact i asked to move to the middle section and get the bassinet set up there just to get some space from him. thankfully this was accommodated. poor paulie could only move over one seat and try to shut down all his receiving senses.
the creature fell asleep almost instantly, fine there. however he proceeded to snore in a volume that competed with the jet engines on the outside of the plane, belch, drool, thrash about and generally make everyone within a three seat radius miserable. even the cabin crew surreptiously sprayed him with air freshener every time they went past. was he not aware of his awfullness? did he not wonder why his shirt, white when he boarded was yellow and brown all down the front when he alighted?
absolutely gross. do i have an over developed sense of cleanliness? personal space?

arriving in dubai we kept as far away as possible and soon lost him in the terminal.
i'll point out that june is not the time to visit dubai. it's way too hot. we arrived at 4am and it was already 31 degrees.

planes are strange places. they bring out the best and the worst in people. sometimes both in the same person within a few minutes. also airports. it might be the constrained environment. it might be the thought that we all want to get somewhere or do something and have as little disruption to that process as possible. travelling is a great delight. you just have to temper it when you have a little person totally dependant on you, along for the ride.
travelling with percy is magical when you look into her little face and her huge liquid eyes stare back at you saying she knows you are doing the best you can and that she trusts you implicitly to make it all good.