The Boston Airport Story

I was woefully unprepared for my trip to Paris. I possessed the prerequisite French language translation book, and carried an overnight bag, while everything else I figured I would need for the next year was stowed below in one massive bag. I had grabbed a novel off the shelf at home before I left, and as my flight on Northwest departed from Minneapolis, I settled into it while I anticipated Boston, and a plane to De Gaulle.

“Alive” turned out to be a poor choice, by the way. Not long after my flight reached cruising altitude, another plane, this one full of South American soccer players and their families made their “rapid descent” into survivalist cannibalism. Sitting in repose, I wondered, aloft, at the logic of my choice of reading material, and turbulence...would prove to be an issue.

Lacking a cereal box or a pharmaceutical label to otherwise focus my attention though, the novel sufficed, and it wasn't long before I was sitting at an O'Hare gate, engulfed in the human tragedy of having to dine on ones contemporaries.

I was about to have a human tragedy of my own.

It started innocently, as most tragedies do. I, having a little room to myself in my general vicinity, chose to make release of an uncomfortable gastronomic build-up. I slowly, subtly, raised my left upper hip from the constricting, and possibly vibratory, plastic seat. I prepared to execute the often needed muscular encouragement but, in that execution, realized my impetuousness.

I look back often to that fateful moment and wish I had allowed for a “system test” before deciding to bring the act to fruition. A “clear coast,” if you will, is not all that is required for a safe and stealthy mission. As a warm, moist, wave spread rapidly through the fibers of my Levi's, I realized too late the cost of assumption.

I beat a hasty retreat to the bathroom, carry-on positioned strategically to conceal the roughly dollar-bill-size evidence of gastronomic haste, where I chose the handicapped stall to survey the attrition. This reconnaissance was going to require some space.

I stripped below the waist and hastily completed what had so rudely begun in the seating area as I rooted desperately through my overnight bag. Since I wasn't actually staying anywhere overnight, the bag contained little of use. The next ten minutes consisted mainly of a porcelain trance, as I sat and willed my clothes to clean themselves. My reverie was finally broken by the pins and needles of blood starved legs. It was time for action.

I began to absorb what I could, which is no easy task in an airport that is environmentally conscious. Nevertheless, single piece by single piece, that public, paraffin-coated paper began to make some progress. The jeans proved salvageable after the moisture was reduced, as long as I remembered to position the bag. The undapants however, were beyond a state of re-use. Focused on catching my flight, the offending garment was wrapped in wads of toilet paper and shoved back into my bag.

The thought of the soiled Levi's against my skin, however, was rapidly proving to be a concept I was unwilling to live with. Something had to go between. I rooted, panic-stricken through the side pockets of my only link back to the civilized world and discovered my favorite bandana. The bandana was officially “stage gear” and intended only for use at the opposite end of my body, but it was about to be introduced to an area of more immediate importance.

It was in this condition that I made the roughly nine-hour flight overseas. Arrival proved to be far too disconcerting to even think about a quick garment change and I promptly forgot about it. Un-met, I made my own way to Gare De Lyon, spent the next hour finding a train to Sens, and it would not be until I was halfway there that I realized something was balled up and jammed against my nether regions. That last two hours, as I made my way to my final destination, was a very uncomfortable period, to say the least.

Anecdotally, the whole sordid episode was rapidly filed away in the dusty warehouse of my mind. Some things are not worth remembering and I gladly put the whole mess behind me. It wouldn't be until about six months later that I would be forced to face my nightmare again; safely back at home, as I discovered a large, unexplained ball of toilet paper in my overnight bag, and slowly started to unwrap...