The Disgusted Man And The Normal Woman

I was reading a book on a long flight, but when I had to pee, I realized I didn’t have a bookmark. I grabbed a barf bag from the seat-back pocket to use as a placeholder. Normally, inserting a bookmark into a book is something I do independently. But in this case, a man next to me scoffed and struck up a conversation to tell me that I was gross.

“For reading?” I asked, being culturally sensitive to traditional men who aren’t used to women reading. I was prepared to comfort him by sharing that I have never learned math.

“No,” he clarified. “It’s gross to use a barf bag as a bookmark.”

I opened my book and then opened the barf bag to show him that there was no barf in the bag. He winced like there was some barf in the bag that only he could see.

“Can’t you just use a real book mark?”

“Sorry, my resources are limited because I’m on an airplane right now. Do you have a bookmark I could borrow? I’ll do whatever it takes to make you, my seatmate, some guy, more comfortable for the next 4 hours.”

I truly sympathized with his spite for me since airplanes are designed to accommodate women and children with the lack of legroom that we all crave in the rest of society. He reached in his back pocket — not an easy task even in an aisle seat — and opened his wallet. Was he going to buy me a bookmark from a secret airplane bookmark store?

And there in his wallet I saw he was an avid collector of bookmarks! I understood that I had disrespected his values. He had a fat stack of bookmarks in the bill fold, some worth up to $100. He handed me a starter version — a bookmark worth $1 — and asked me to put the barf bag away.

I hate to be in a position where I need to be rude in the face of someone’s unprompted generosity, but I liked my bookmark better because it was bigger and less damp than what he’d handed me. I put his gift on my seat tray to air it out, hoping to chat a bit and give the dollar some time to dry. I asked if that’s what he always used as bookmarks.

“I don’t read.” He declared victoriously. Some people don’t like to read. But then why did he have so many bookmarks?

I had to pee but I didn’t want to put a wet dollar in my book and I didn’t want to put a barf bag in it either, because every time I did, even when I thought he wasn’t looking, the man protested like when a baby falls asleep in its mother’s arms and then cries as he’s being set into his bassinet. How do they know what’s happening to them?

In the sky, I make decisions differently than I do on the ground. For example, on the ground I never buy a $15 beer at 9 am. But in the sky, the ground rules become useless. I wrote that pun down to enjoy later.

On land, I typically nod politely to suggestive men and then I remove myself from them. Here, I knew I would have to be more accommodating so that we could both endure the flight without resorting to terrorism, which you can’t do since 9/11.

“Sir.” I turned to him boldly. I picked up the dollar and placed it in my barf bag and then placed the barf bag in my book to mark my spot. My bookmark would protect me from the germs on his. “When the plane lands I will use this dollar to buy a proper bookmark. Thank you for looking out for me. If you would kindly look out for me once more by letting me out so I can use the bathroom?”

He was upset. First I disregarded his present, then I asked him to stand up for a second. I hate to be rude. I felt guilty for my behavior. I could admit his bookmark wasn’t so bad and I realized I could solve a two-in-one problem.

I smiled at him, my seatmate, some guy. I took the barf bag out of my book and I took the dollar out of the barf bag and I put the dollar in between the pages I would come back to after I peed and then I pissed into the barf bag.