Sunday, February 17, 2008

Don’t cry over spilt coffee...

I wasn’t all-to-thrilled to fly east today, interrupting a beautiful weekend in San Francisco and a visit by our friend Paolo. But duty called, and Jeff dropped me off at the airport bright and early.

A non-fat Peet’s latte in hand, I boarded my on-time flight, thrilled to receive my requested upgrade to business class. I even got a light chuckle at the dozen-or-so foreign tourists with blue Seating Area 4 boarding passes try and board with first class...perhaps that was where my kharma went sour.

I was all smiles, until I inadvertently set my latte on an uneven surface in the overhead bins to free up my hands. For all of five excruciating seconds, after unexpectedly tipping over sideways, my latte rained down on the helpless gentleman who was to be my seat-mate for the next five hours.

He was calm…I will give him that. And fortunately, the latte dripped mainly on the water-resistant overcoat in his lap. But still…what a mess.

I darted into the bathroom quickly to get him tons of paper towels…and he quietly dabbed up the warm liquid. I apologized 100 times over, and tried to be as attentive as possible…but really, what can you do at that point.

It was a stupid accident, and for the next five hours, I sat apologetically quiet beside this silent man…who FYI acted an awful lot like Frasier Crane’s obsessive-compulsive brother. So, my little mess was probably a doozy for him :(

Oh uncomfortable silence.

For most of the trip, we were overtop dense, ominous snow clouds. But for the first hour-or-so, we were over some beautiful western landscapes. Certainly beat the crap movies, whose titles I have already forgotten.




2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's so awful and funny! I have to say it's up there with Chris getting ink all over Jeff and then accidentally squirting hand sanitizer in his eye!

Curt Sawyer said...

I fly later today to our VA office - are you there this week?