I Crack Me Up Sometimes

So around this time of year, I start digging up old things from closets to look at or think about some of the stuff I’ve done in the past. Sure it’s a new year…but that doesn’t mean we should forget everything in the past. I’m a reflective kind of girl…what can I say?

It was during our search for a new TV set (Freak picture tube accident! Lenny was sad.) tonight after dinner. While we were waiting for the Target stock staff to bring us our TV, I stood in the middle of the electronics department thinking about the last time we were in San Francisco. Just out of the blue it came. This was about four or five years ago now and it ranks as one of my favorite trips with Lenny.

The funniest part about this trip actually happened on the flight home. Our plane was delayed on the tarmac for at least 45-minutes; there were cranky babies and cranky adults everywhere! Having traveled a lot and (at the time) employed in the travel industry, I tended to take most discomforts of travel in stride. Once you start racking up 120-call days at a reservation center, you tend to sympathize more with your hospitality brethren.

Anyways…we’re in the air for about 20-minutes. Lenny and I kind of have a laugh at the expense of the woman (a loud one, with a nasally accent) in the seat in front of me as she bitched about the trip like she’s the only one who’s affected by it. We hate whiners…and boy was she a whiner. I doze off in my seat for a moment. When I wake up, I discover that the woman has leaned her seat back…ALL THE WAY INTO MY LAP.

The effect was pretty drastic. I may be short, but I do tend to need more than 3-inches of space to sit uncomfortably in a plane. Put my tray table in the full and upright position? The tray table was in my lap…in the full and upright position while locked into place! Lenny and I couldn’t trade seats because I was pinned to the upholstery. I tried to get her attention, but no luck…she’d gone down for a nap of her own.

I could have kicked the chair. I could have blown up an air sickness bag and popped it over her face. I could have made the stewardess handle it for me. But I had yet to find my “I Don’t Give a S@#t!” attitude. So what did I do?

I wrote haiku.

Three of them to be exact. In hindsight…they kind of suck. However, at the time, it was a GREAT catharsis! The simplicity of a 5-7-5 stanza prevented me from smothering that woman with one of those paper pillows. Proving to myself yet again – I was born to put words to paper!

When I thought about my “Airplane Haiku” while shopping, I so wanted to see them again. Thank goodness Lenny is a pack rat with several flash drives! After some minimal searching, he found it. I had a good laugh once more relieving the reason behind the verse.

So – I felt like sharing. Like I said, I wrote them to amuse myself in a time of stress. But that’s okay. I wrote them for ME! If you can’t write for yourself…how do you expect to write for others!

Enjoy…or not. The choice is yours. But know this: I crack me up sometimes!

LILY’S INFAMOUS AIRPLANE HAIKU

Haiku I – Take Off
Brown haired she-devil
Please pull your seat up for me
My space is too small

Haiku II – Leveling Out
Look out the window
Enjoying the vast vast blue
It’s all I can do

Haiku III – Final Approach
One foot between us
Several thousand feet below
A long drop for her