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Mar
13
Quote a Day, day 6
2009 at 10am Posted by Rebecca Joines Schinsky
Because it’s Friday, and I’m sure we could all use a little splash of humor, today’s quote is actually a passage from one of my favorite books of 2008, Dick Meyer’s Why We Hate Us (my review). It’s all about Americans’ increasingly rude social behavior (and what we can do to fix it), and while I agree that people can be—and often are—completely maddening, their cluelessness can also be completely hilarious, as in this anecdote.
Pig Man boarded with a heavy black roller bag. While stowing it in the overhead compartment, he smashed my soft carry-on without hesitation or apology. Pig Man sat down and immediately got out his cell phone and began shouting into it. Using a cell phone on a plane before takeoff is, sadly, common and apparently acceptable. Many, but perhaps not most, airplane cell talkers will try to talk softly, cover the phone, or hunch over as gestures toward the surrounding humanity. Not Pig Man. He sat up straight and barked. I learned that Pig Man barely had time to shower before the flight, the he had had an athletic morning at the club, that some buddies were having fun at a picnic, that he expected whomever he was talking with to stock up on liquor before he got to his destination, and a few spicier things I will not repeat. Pig Man ignored polite but dirty looks from at least three neighbors besides me.
On takeoff, Pig Man immediately removed his shower slippers and crossed his legs so that his bare foot and its five heinous toes grazed my left arm. One doesn’t have to be Emily Post to know that one does not touch a stranger with bare feet. He responded to my instant swivel and heartfelt scowl with a dismissive wave that said, “Sorry, pal, don’t be so uptight.” My evil eye also spotted one of his testicles that had squirted loose from his gym shorts. Pig Man kept his grotesque foot in the aisle but moved the offending appendage closer to my wife and her considerable olfactory gifts. She reported the foot to be stinky.
Other books I’ve quoted this week
- Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
- The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
- Beloved by Toni Morrison
- The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
No related posts.
Ewwww! Oh dear.
Just ugh. Glad I haven’t sat next to Pig Man.
OMG, this was so funny.
Okay, that was just normally rude-offensive behavior until you got to the part about the shorts. Wahh-ugh-ewww!
I am so not getting on an airplane ever again …