AS THE TACO TURNS - TSA....Make My Day

     I am joyous when I step off of the airplane at the Manzanillo airport. I am riddled with angst thinking about stepping onto the airplane to get there. Over the last twenty plus years, jet travel has morphed from an optimal good time of being wined, dined and conversing with interesting people to a broken expedition I think of as Dead Man Sitting.


Recently, as I breezed through the airport metal detector, a youthful looking agent who appeared to be on his first few days of the new job, pointed below my chin and asked me “Are those real?”
    I recoiled at his method of questioning and looked down at my breasts. Had TSA gathered new classified data? Could silicone breast implants in the wrong hands, so to speak, be ignited and used as mammary missiles by a Jihad Jane? This could mean any woman larger than a B-cup would be subject to further pat down procedures.
     “Of course they are real” I said “I can’t believe you asked me that question.”
     His face flushed crimson and he stammered “N, n, no… I was talking about your pearls.”
     Humph. That was an embarrassing misunderstanding. I looked shiftily side to side hoping that no one else had heard our conversation, then grabbed my shoes and skedaddled to our departure gate. In a few minutes Larry and I would be on our way to Mexico.
     We boarded the plane and I scooted down the aisle humming La Bamba under my breath. “Yo no soy marinero, soy capitan, soy capitan. I mouthed with celebratory abandon. My vigorous enthusiasm was dashed the moment I arrived at my row. In the aisle seat was a mountain of a man whose preponderance of girth spilled over onto the adjacent seat. I rechecked my boarding pass and then studied the numbered placard below the overhead bin. “Merciful Lord, I prayed.  Please let there be some empty seats.”
     Larry prodded me with his computer bag and skirted past me. “I’ll take the window, he said. “You will probably be more comfortable closer to the aisle.” Halcyon days of wine and roses were definitely behind us.
     Hoss stood up and allowed us to situate. I resignedly shoe horned myself into a sliver of space. I usually take life with a grain of salt. Today I would also need a piece of lime and a shot of tequila.
     In a predatory move I quickly flipped the armrest to its horizontal position before he sat down again.


 There is a passenger etiquette rule that is not written on the airline ticket jacket nor buried in the fine print found in the back of the in-flight magazine. I call it the law of first dibs. The passenger sitting in the middle seat is entitled to the sole use of those armrests. The armrests were the only remnant of self indulgence I had and I intended to seize and hold them like a pit-bull defending a pork chop.
     The agent closed the door and my searching eyes swept the cabin. To my chagrin, there was a seat in every seat.
     After takeoff, the flight attendants came through the aisle with a drink trolley. Gi-tanic ordered a double gin and tonic and I followed suit. As he raised his glass, I noticed hash marks tattooed across his knuckles. My instincts are usually spot- on and I pegged him as the kind of fellow who knew his way around the State Penitentiary. I wondered if he was doing time for a crime such as human trafficking or cooking meth,. The tats could indicate Crypts or Blood allegiance. I made a mental note to Google “Gang Ink”.
     “So, have you been to Mexico before?” I queried, thinking that he might be on the lam.
     “Oh yes, many times. My wife and I own a villa near Manzanillo.”
     So much for my female intuition. We chatted for a few minutes and my seat companion ordered another double.
     He continued, “I am a Bio-technician in the research and development department of Glaxco.”
     I cocked my head. The glaze that came over my eyes prompted him to expand.
     “GlaxcoSmithKline. It’s a drug company. “
     Now this was something I could relate to and was surprised I had failed to recognize the name sooner.
     “My name is Booker.” He said and extended his hand.
     “Ah-ha", I thought.  " Booker the Cooker.”  So my cheeky first impression was not far from the truth after all.
      Booker had a posh sounding British accent not unlike Austin Powers or maybe the Queen Mother.
     “Pleased to meet you Booker.  My name is Beth.”
      After a few minutes of sparkling conversation, I felt guilty about having judged a "Booker by its cover" and decided to plunge ahead.
     “I couldn’t help but notice those interesting tattoos, Book. I’ll bet there is an engaging story there.”
     “Oh, Crickey”, he hooted. During me undergrad stint at Oxford Uni, me and a few blokes from the Science Club snuck into the laboratory. We wanted to distill high octane gin to make walloping Pimms Cups. A few hours later, I woke up rat arsed under a lab table clutching a broken beaker in me hand. I looked up and saw a cage. It’s bleedin' door was wide open and a rhesus monkey was sittin on me face, pickin' bits a glass outa me hair.”
     Poking through the fabric of his upscale accent was a working class Cockney dialect. The more he drank, the more he sounded like Ozzy Osbourne.
     He continued, “Later on after I crawled back to me dorm, one of me wanker mates confessed to tatting me knuckles. One mark for each beaker of gin I knocked down. I think I broke a class record.” He shook his head. “That was a cockup occasion I won’t forget anytime soon; you know what I mean?”
     “Umm, not really.” I mumbled. “But that was a jolly good story.”
     I could think of only one memorable incident of celebratory fallout during my youth that happened after a long night of drinking fortified wine. I passed out and my friends stuck cigarettes up my nose and in my ears and posted the photos in a Denny’s bathroom stall.
     I had no idea that Brit geeks could rock down in such an impressive manner but hoped that Booker had gotten his drinking and possible drug abuse under control after he graduated and began working for Glaxco. I was pretty sure that they made Boniva, an osteoporosis preventative drug that I took with regularity. A disconcerting thought popped into my head. That of a somber spokesperson in a Sokolove type ad imploring anyone who had taken Boniva and been diagnosed with Elephantitis to please call 1-800 BAD DRUG concerning a class action lawsuit.
     The pilots made an announcement that we would be landing in approximately twenty minutes and I had to admit that the time had flown by quickly. As we walked off of the airplane and the smell of the sea air welcomed me back, I realized that even though my legs were tingly and I could hardly feel them, it was still possible to have a gobsmacking good time while traveling on a plane.