I'm sitting on a flight from Nashville to Raleigh Durham, a Southwest affair that would have been much pleasanter if it had been the one-way flight I had previously thought it to be instead of the two-stage detour through Music City. I need to read the flight schedules more carefully the next time I fly. The plane is hot, and I'm more or less sleep-deprived, from a series of evenings spent trying to finish and release content for a client. My flight was delayed initially leaving Chicago Midway, but at least I had time to change out of my business vestments and into jeans and a t-shirt. I tried to doze on the first leg a bit, leaning my head against the window and shutting my lids the moment I boarded. It might have worked, but the guy in the aisle seat kept loudly joking with the woman seated next to me. I thought about reaching for the pack of earplugs I keep with me at all times during travel -- making an obnoxiously exaggerated arm motion, with an annoyed sniff -- but in the end I just sucked it up and stayed annoyed. Maybe next time an outright, 120-decibel guffaw would do the trick. I did doze a bit, but when I woke, because the plane is so warm, I could feel my jeans sticking to my legs, and the gross pre-rash moisture of back sweat in a too-new tshirt.

And here come the peanuts -- two bags per customer, as the flight is too short to warrant full-fledged snack mix on one of the few remaining profitable airlines. The guy next to me is conforming to the general picture of the business traveler -- suit, dress watch, engrossed in a thick hardback politico-miltary thriller novel by some no-name book-of-the-month author who will never be remembered after the moment -- one week from now -- when the traveler drops the book off at whatever used book stall his current airport boasts, and picks up something from the book vending machines on his way to the next flight to Houston. The pilot comes over the intercom, dutifuly playing his accustomed role of the intrepid, slightly-salty-but-still-trustworthy captain: "Aahhhhhhhhnnnnnwelcomeaboardfolks --- we'rrrrrrrrrrrrr....currentlycruisingat --- analtitudeovvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv.....twentyseb'nthousandfeet". I wonder if they learn that kind of strange halting meter and lingo in flight school? The same way that preachers in the South learn to say "Jeeee-uh-zuuuus!" Is there a mini-course they all take somewhere, devoted to career-specific speech patterns?

Speaking of convention, this reminds me of a certain biker dude on my flight up here Tuesday. He was a biker off his bike, and like many Harley owners, he seemed unsettled by the thought of taking a plane: "Mongo no take big bird! Mongo ride Fat Boy!" The only comfort left to such as he is to proclaim his true identity as a serious bike dude by sporting acceptable, away-from-my-ride-but-only-temporarily biker casual wear: jeans, a trucker's hat, and the obligatory black Harley-Davidson t-shirt. His t-shirt was emblazoned in orange and white with the slogan "you never see a motorcycle parked outside a psychiatrist's office," which I took as proof that even t-shirt copywriters mail it in somedays. Maybe the writer was pressed for time, and late for his own psychiatric appointment. If you got stuck writing t-shirt slogans for Harley-Davidson, I'm betting you'd have more than your fair share of counseling bills: "I write for a living, but I don't live to write, much less live to write about riding to live and living to ride; I'm so confused, doctor! And why are there no motorcycles in your parking lot?" Eeeyep.

Geez, when will this flight arrive? Cap'n Crusty up there said 8:15PMorrrrrrrrrrrrr...thereabouts; I'm looking forward to a late dinner with Shel at Pepper's.

Did I say Cap'n Crusty? Based on his landing, a better epithet would be Cap'n Crunch. Good thing they build 'em sturdy.