“You turned my eight-hundred-dollar hair into a kindergarten craft project!”
At 35,000 feet, a young woman stood in the airplane aisle, furious, with pink glittery slime tangled in her expensive hair. She pointed at me while the entire cabin watched in stunned silence. And there I sat, Martha Delaney, a 73-year-old retired school librarian, with glitter on my fingers and absolutely no regrets. Well, almost none.
Two hours earlier, I had been standing in an airport shop, holding a tub of Galaxy Unicorn Mega Slime for my ten-year-old granddaughter, Emily. It was the only thing she wanted for her birthday, and after weeks of searching, I had finally found it. I was on a fixed income, but seeing her happy was worth every penny. Unfortunately, the woman standing ahead of me had other plans for everyone’s peace and quiet.
Her name was Brittany. She had hair that seemed to reach halfway to the next state, and she kept flipping it around while filming herself for her online followers. She sprayed expensive perfume into the air, complained when people asked her to move, and eventually swung her enormous extensions straight into my face. I politely asked her to be careful. She told me I was jealous. I smiled and told her I had lovely hair during the Reagan administration. That was when the trouble began.
On the airplane, Brittany sat directly in front of me. Her hair repeatedly fell onto my tray table, covered my crossword puzzle, landed in my lunch, and eventually dipped into my wine. Every time I asked her to move it, she laughed and told me to stop complaining. When she mocked my age and called me ancient, something inside me finally snapped. I reached into my purse, opened Emily’s precious slime, and took a generous handful of purple, pink, glitter-filled goo. Then I carefully worked it into the ends of Brittany’s eight-hundred-dollar extensions. I thought I was leaving her a small reminder about manners. I had absolutely no idea that the next few minutes would turn an ordinary flight into an unforgettable spectacle…CONTINUE READING
