I love traveling. I hate flying. Why do all trips, no matter how wonderful, have to begin and end at the airport? It's a tragedy, like the Bataan Death March. The airport is the most depressing place around, because nobody wants to be there. Whenever you pick up a friend at the airport, he's never like, "What's the rush? Let's hang around here for a while." He's always like, "Let's get the fuck out of here."

I hate getting up early to make it to the airport on time. I hate finding parking. I hate assuring the agent that yes, I packed my bags myself, and no, I didn't ask any Colombians to watch them while I went to the bathroom. I hate waiting in line to go through security. I hate taking off my belt and shoes. I hate digging out my passport for any person in a navy blazer who asks. I hate setting off the metal detector even though the largest pieces of metal on my person are the screws in my glasses. I hate boarding the plane and waiting in the aisle while some yoohoo twenty rows ahead tries to cram a steamer trunk into the overhead bin. I hate sitting in the middle seat. I hate trying -- and failing -- to sleep on the plane. I hate trying -- and failing -- to get up the nerve to talk to the cute Spanish girl sitting next to me. I hate squirming to get comfortable in a seat designed for Munchkins. I hate that the best movie available is Van Helsing. I hate waiting for the current occupant of the bathroom to finish his revolutionary proof of the Riemann Hypothesis. I hate remaining seated while we taxi to the gate. I hate hustling to make my connection. I hate fresh questions from Customs. I hate realizing that the average Dutch baggage handler speaks better English than I do.

I like airplane food, though. HINT: the chicken is always better than the beef.

I hate people on planes. When I boarded the plane in Amsterdam for an 11-hour flight to Houston, I found myself sitting in the middle seat next to an older gentleman with leathery skin and a shock of white hair. I squeezed into my seat and began to settle in.

"Is that a picture y'all got there?" the man asked in a Louisiana accent, gesturing to a souvenir I had wedged under the seat in front of me.

"No, it's a chessboard," I said.

"Did y'all get that here in Holland?" he asked.

"No, I got it in Morocco."

"Morocco, huh? Were y'all working there?"

"No, I was visiting a friend. How about you? Were you working here in Amsterdam?" I didn't care, but I like to do an impression of a friendly person from time to time.

HINT: Do not do an impression of a friendly person on a plane.

"Oh, I'm up here working," he said, chuckling for no apparent reason. "My company sends me all over the world to work on barges."

"That's cool," I said.

"Yep," he said, "I've been all over Europe, I've been to Russia, Asia, I lived in Japan for a while. All first-class travel, of course."

"Well, that's the way to do it," I said.

"Well, I'm a mechanical engineer, you know," he said. "And some of these boys don't know the first thing about keeping a barge running. I remember one time I found that someone had climbed up on a ladder and tightened two bolts... with a wrench. I said, 'If y'all don't know how to do something, don't do it! That's what I'm here for!' Heh heh heh!" And then he nudged me.

Nudged me.

My chest tightened. I realized, too late, that I was sitting next to an man who was not only extremely boring, but also extremely sociable -- a deadly combination. It was like being caught by The Hag, the old woman at my job who traps her unsuspecting coworkers in pointless, unending conversations. Except I couldn't just leave the break room to get away from this guy -- I would be sitting next to him for eleven hours.

"Yep," he said, "I told them, 'Y'all better get yourselves a new chief engineer, because the one you got don't know squat!' Heh heh heh!" Another nudge.

Like a turtle retreating into its shell, I went into Extreme Boring Conversation Defense Mode, a mode of behavior indistinguishable -- to the uneducated observer -- from Being A Complete Prick. I broke off eye contact. I replied to all of his statements with "Mmmmmm." I answered his few questions in a monotone, using as few words as possible. During a short break in the storytelling, I landed the coup de grâce by reaching forward, decisively picking up my New Yorker, and starting to read.

He didn't speak to me for the rest of the flight. This was fine, except I was sitting in the middle seat. I didn't want to talk to the boring guy, even to ask him to move so I could use the bathroom, and the lady to my left slept for nearly the entire flight. So I held it as long as I could and avoided drinking water. You veteran travelers will confirm that this is not an optimum strategy on a transatlantic flight. By the time we reached Houston, I had a sore throat and a headache. But at least I had crossed the Atlantic Ocean in delicious silence.

+posted by Lawrence @ 10/01/2004 08:21:00 AM