No Nuns were Harmed in the Writing of This Blog

After a wonderful breakfast outdoors in the cool Connecticut morning with my friends Karen and Stori eventually they had to get on the road to head home.  After our heartfelt goodbyes from a great reunion weekend I headed off to Bradley International Airport.  I arrived with lots of time to wait so I thought I would circle the terminals to get my steps.  It had been a low step weekend even though last night I did my best to dance up a lot of steps at the Ba Na Na Na – the traditional EWS dance party.

It turns out Bradley is a crap airport to walk in.  There is only one terminal with two little short legs and not much room to walk.  After making three passes of the route I decided I was drawing too much attention to myself from the many TSA agents so I settled into a rocking chair.

After pulling out my needlepoint I was suddenly I was surrounded by many middle aged and older elegant women who all seemed to resemble Barbara Billingsly, the Beaver’s mom from Leave it to Beaver.  Turns out that Smith College had a reunion this weekend too.  After a few rows of stitching, another group of women came along and joined the Smith women and me at the rocking chairs.  This group was not quite as elegant, but they were all as well behaved as the elegant alumnae around me since they were Nuns.

I learned by doing my favorite airport activity, eavesdropping, that many of the Smith women and all of the Nuns were going to be on my first flight to Baltimore.  Hooray, a flight of quite, well behaved, thin passengers with a good connection with the guy who might ensure we would arrive in one piece.

As the Southwest gate agent called us to line up I took my number 4 position in line.  Being early on the flight where we get to pick our own seats I chose an emergency exit row seat for the extra legroom.  Then the game began of other passengers coming down the aisle assessing which seat they would take.  I silently prayed to get one of the Smith ladies or at least a tiny Nun.  No luck.  The largest man in a red spider t-shirt that barley covered his nine-mouth pregnant like stomach sat right next to me.

When I was much fatter the fat people would not sit with me.  See, fat people want to sit next to thin people so they can co-opt some of their space.  If they sit next to an already seated fat person they don’t have the same opportunity.  Now that I am normal size I guess I have become a target for the space grabbers.  It was a good thing I had a little extra legroom because the pregnant man instantly fell asleep and spread out all his limbs in his sleep as well as his mouth with breath that could have made one of the Nuns swear out loud.  I think I need to wear all my clothes at the same time next time I get on a plane so that I appear larger and scare off the space steeling fat people. So much for the end of my great reunion weekend.