I don’t love flying.  It scares me.  Not badly enough to stay at home, but badly enough to keep me from really enjoying my little bag of pretzels and half can of Pepsi.

I know flying is supposedly safe, but every time the landing gear comes up or goes down, I just know I’m actually hearing one or both wings fall off. 

So I spend most of every flight hyperventilating on stale airplane air while pretending to read those glossy airline magazines made up entirely of ads for luggage and international voltage converters.  If I’m lucky, there is a nearby crying child to help me get my mind off of things.

However, on a recent flight back to St. Louis from Chicago, I found something else to do:  eavesdrop.  There were two young ladies sitting behind me.  They seemed to be business associates, and were discussing a dot-com business one of them worked for.  The other lady must have been some kind of public relations expert, because she was explaining how to effectively use press releases to generate business.

Their conversation was sort of interesting, given my own preoccupation with the Internet.  I was even able to relax a little, almost forgetting that the jet’s wings were going to fall off at any moment. 

I’m sure I heard a lot of great advice about marketing a dot-com business using press releases.  Unfortunately, I don’t remember any of it.   That’s because the topic of conversation soon turned to dating and relationships, and eventually to the girls’ sex life. 

It’s a proven scientific fact (look it up) that when a guy hears a conversation containing any mention of sex, he will only remember the dirty parts.  It doesn’t matter how long the conversation is, or how briefly sex is actually talked about. 

So I don’t remember any details from the first part of the conversation.  But I definitely remember the rest of it.  Boy howdy!

The girls were describing in graphic detail things they had done, things that had been done to them, things they would like to have done to them, and things they simply refused to do. 

I didn’t get the impression that these were sleazy or promiscuous women.  It just seemed like they were totally at ease discussing sex in great detail.  I felt like I was an extra on the set of Sex In The City.   I’m not saying this kind of openness makes me uncomfortable, but at one point I was actually hoping the plane’s wings would fall off. 

But the wings remained attached to the plane, we managed to land safely, and I watched the two girls disappear into the crowded airport.   As far as I know, they were still casually talking about various obscure sex acts as they wandered off. 

I hope I meet up with them again some day.  I want to thank them for helping me take my mind off my fear of flying.  Also, I have some questions.

Printer-Friendly Version

E-Mail This to a Friend