Nixon on UA681

I am en route from Chicago back home. Aisle seat. Floating towards me
on her way to asking passengers at the emergency door about their
willingness to help is the most gorgeous flight attendant I have ever
met. The photo does not do her justice; not to a half measure. Her face
is expressive as a movie while she serves drinks. And her
haircut is the cutest. A perfect cut for her. When she smiles, she
truly smiles, when she puzzles over the credit card machine, she
truly puzzles. Surprise mirrored on her face evokes twenty birthday
parties. I’m in love with her.

As she ever so slowly works her cart towards me during a final
beverage run I can no longer hold myself back. I must have photos of
this woman. The lighting is dim, and my iPhone does not do well in
low light. But I click away. The camera loves her, and so does its operator. She pretends that she is oblivious, but she
would have been 3/4 blind not to notice me.

Yet, I’m not a people photographer. Pointing my iPhone at another
human being embarrasses me deeply. When she is close enough that I can
get a reasonable portrait of her, I mumble something about wanting to
show her haircut to my girlfriend. That would be true if I had a
girlfriend. She responds with something I cannot quite catch, but
which ends in the phrase ‘others would not be so lenient, but it’s
OK.’ And she steps back to pose for me.

It happens thirty seconds later, when she and her cart are finally right
beside me, serving the opposite seat. My embarrassment over
having taken these pictures rolls over me like a wave of molten
lava. And I hear myself say to her: “I am not a creep.”

My flashback to Nixon is immediate, and shames me into the
ground. Because I realize that my beautiful flight attendant is
experiencing no such flashback. Her mother was a child at the time.

Uber Woman

A friend told me that I could sit in front when traveling Uber. So I did. Young woman? Short shots, and otherwise wonderful. I don’t know how she could concentrate, but I couldn’t. So hard to look at her face.