OH…MAH GAW…Babylon has arrived. We are living in the wretched Age of Advertising. I wonder if, as it crumbled, Rome also had pill ads plastered on the flight trays in planes. People, I am SO thrilled that I have this to stare at for the entirety of my flight.

I barely caught my flight from Oakland. It wasn’t quite the first-scene-of-Home Alone-ish fiasco that I usually experience with iLL-Lit gigs, but it would’ve at least been worthy of a commercial break in my sitcom. It began only a couple of hours ago when I was chillin at Nico’s apartment, just shooting shit about ideas for shows, when I politely paused to pick up my laptop, yenno, just to check into my 10:30pm flight early.

I mean, 8:20. Woops. I caught flashbacks of earlier phone conversations with the organizers at Villanova, their nervous umm….ok’s when I told them, “Oh yeah, everything’s going SMOOOOOTH…I mean, I still have, like, FIVE HOURS before my flight leaves.” Luckily, Phatrick was there to save the day and zip me over to the airport. Gotta love that Chinese brethren.

So anyway, I feel I need to win a couple more Emmys before I can start being all uppity about the airlines that I fly on, but America West is like the airline that the other airlines never want to call when they go out to the club. Its generic, very likely government-injected name screams nationalism from the same breath as that of the old couples who wear red white and blue jumpsuits while power-walking in the mall. The turquoise-teal seats and carpet are so dated that they’re accidentally retro. I stand at the gate while the first class boards, contemplating whether I want to just settle for something at 360Burrito, or gamble at the likes that there will be something somewhat delicious/healthy/vegetarian friendly at Las Vegas where I sedately anticipate my layover to Philly for my show at Villanova University tomorrow.

By the way, it takes a particular type of person to fly first class from Oakland to Vegas on America West. I imagine there is weekly bowling night involved.

I, on the other hand, am not boarding first class. My grainy xerox boarding pass says “Zone 4” on the bottom right hand, right next to “No meal.” The woman at the check-in desk grabs her intercom and scans the audience like she’s about to select the next “Price is Right” contestant.

“Zone 1, now boarding Zone 1.” Then Zone 2. Zone 3. The idly-standing crowd shrinks as people hoard into the narrow metal abyss.






...





“Ok, now boarding all other passengers.” Sigh, just like being picked for kickball all over again. I conform like the rest of the sheep passengers, hurrying to be the first among the last-picked to cross, following by example of the people ahead of me by thanking the check-in lady for checking me in. Thank you. Thank you for tearing my ticket stub. Oh, so very much.

But it’s all good. I’m not the type to let myself be bothered by tacky interior design or childhood-trauma-summoning seating tactics. But the brown stains smeared by my window? Ok, maybe.













You meander past the people standing sluggishly on the giant human conveyor belt, blocking you towards getting to your gate to take your flight you’re sure you’ve missed already. In your head, you’re visiting every possibility of dramatics, the giant metallic vault to the plane closing right as you approach and a stern attendant that looks strikingly similar to your second grade English teacher holding her extended palm out to stop you and banish you to a hellish sleepover in the terminal to catch a possible standby at the buttcrack of dawn. Fortunately for you, the plane hasn’t left yet, but the line at the gate has already dissipated. You hand your boarding pass to the woman at the counter who gives you a cold look like “We’ve been ALL waiting for YOU.”

Some people are trailing behind you as well, so at least you’re not the very last person, but still late enough to miss dibs on pillows. You take your seat at 19F, window seat. You prefer the window, especially for red-eye flights, because you’d rather endure the stale awkwardness of having to climb over both people next to you to go to the bathroom rather than yourself being woken up from the sleep that’s already hard for you to catch on planes. In the ideal fantasy situation, you might even get to squeeze past the two extremely hot women you got seated next to.

Not this time though. Nosirree. For this flight, your fellow cadets are comprised of:

1) 19D—a thin man with a neatly-trimmed orange mustache, dressed in a black fleece and black jeans. Probably drove to the airport in a Vespa. Probably named Voxtrot. Or Maximillion.

2) 19E—an old Korean man, who you’re intimidated by because he’s an old Korean man (by the way, you’re not making false assumptions or stereotypes about his ethnicity—he’s reading a Korean newspaper. Then again, maybe you shouldn’t jump the gun—he could be a Russian woman who looks freakishly Korean, and male, and who can read Korean. Named Sofia.)

Voxtrot hooks his index finger on the armrest separating him from Sofia. “Mind if I pull this down?” Sofia looks at you, and pulls down the other armrest. Ahh, male awkwardness divided and conquered. But you should be the last to make sweeping generalizations, you're the biggest caricature of the three. You're the Bay Area hippie with rasta-colored sneakers reading Plath.

Up ahead, a man is causing a ruckus, claiming that a guy in headphones is sitting in his seat. Both of their passes say 16A. “Just take a seat, sir,” scowls a flight attendant.

“This is my seat!”

“There’s a seat right next to him, sir,” suggests another flight attendant. Both attendants look like they’re in their late forties, but with hair moussed semi-spiky and highlighted so fiery-red, you’re convinced they must have come into work today directly after a Go-Go’s concert.

“I don’t want to sit next to him,” the man grumbles, and finally takes a seat across the isle from you (19C) and immediately begins coughing so violently you swear he’s going to vomit his vertebrae at any moment. The person diagonal from him (18D) peels open his tube of Airborne and slithers it into his mouth. Hm, never seen anybody take Airborn like that before.

But you’re settled in your seat now, and it’s already 2am Philadelphia time, which means you’re only going to get enough sleep to make you exhausted tomorrow. The Korean man's elbow has imperialized the entire armrest and he has fallen asleep with his knees spread, pushing you to the cramped corner of your seat. Yeah, climbing over him for the lavatory would be pretty awkward. Oh well. You can hold it until you get to the other side of the country.