back in america 11/11/09

i know that halitosis is real and that some people have really bad breath through no fault of their own, but i also know that chewing gum and binaca aren't exactly in short supply, particularly in airports, which is why i was furious at the people i was sitting next to on the plane.

maribel and luis, both spaniards, had been lisping at each other for about an hour after takeoff when i first noticed their awful breath. it smelled like rotting trash. i tried to tune it out, but it was like trying to tune out a gunshot wound. i might not notice it for a minute, but then they'd use a sentence with a lot of aspiration and all of a sudden, the smell would be unbearable and i would get heartburn.

i'm pretty good with manners, so how i could offer two people next to me chewing gum without looking like an asshole? the answer: impossible, so i didn't even try.

i made it a point to get up and do laps through the cabin regularly. as a result, i probably clocked about four miles of walking between paris and san francisco, at 39,000 feet above earth's surface. i kept wandering past the self-service cart and had about two liters of water during my walk.

anyway, since my flight left paris around 11 am and landed in san francisco at about 2 pm, i lived in perpetual lunch time- it was awful, i hate lunch. lunch #1 was some pasty rice glop that north korea probably feeds political prisoners. lunch #2 was vegetables and couscous. it looked cold, so i already wasn't very interested, but then maribel and luis started talking. fast. hard. extra lispily. and i almost threw up in my lap.

i immediately got up and walked away as quickly as possible. i walked down the aisle to the back of the plane, i rounded the weird space shuttle kitchen and then walked up the other aisle. i had to do three laps before my stomach was settled.

"excuse me, but your breath makes me want to vomit" is not something that i know how to say in spanish, so i settled for "can i use your pen?"

i filled out my landing card and flagged down the flight attendants to take my untouched lunch away.

more time passed and all i wanted to do was get away from these people. unluckily, the spaniards on my right had friends on the flight, who gathered in the aisle to my left and they lisped, breathed and laughed at each other across me. it was like being caught in the middle of a stinky squirt gun fight.

eventually, we landed and i got out to the curb, not having eaten a lunch in eight hours and having done a four-mile marathon in the air.

i needed to eat fast, so i went to a taqueria, ordered my burrito and when it arrived, i swallowed it like a python.

i'll miss the french and moroccan food of my trip, but at this point, i'd eat packing peanuts as long as it's not in a plane with maribel and luis.