“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Portland International Airport. If Portland is not your final destination, then we wish you all the best on the rest of your journey wherever you may go. If Portland is your final destination, enjoy your stay and we hope to see you aboard of one of ours or one of our partners’ airplanes in the near future.”
After fifteen hours in the air I’m finally here. Portland, Oregon, the city that will be my home for part of the 25th and 26th year of my life.
I have lived abroad before, that’s not it, but I feel like this time is going to be different, I don’t really know why. Maybe it is because this time I’m moving because of work instead of it being my own choice and I have to stick to a certain schedule. Maybe it is because this time I’m going all by myself. Or maybe it’s because now, unlike before, I feel that I’m really ready to move and live in another country. I don’t know, it might just be all three, it probably is.
“Sir, are you okay? We’re going to clean the aircraft. Could you please take your belongings and move towards the exit? Thank you.”
I open my eyes and find myself lying against the window with spittle dripping from my mouth leaving a track across my entire shirt which looks like a bunch of snails have been crawling all over me during the flight. I look to the front of the airplane and see three guys dressed in bright orange uniforms like they just walked away from some kind of prison facility looking at me in a way that says; “Dude, what’s wrong with you?”. Each one is holding a broom, garbage bag or some other kind of cleaning supply ready to get to action, but obviously waiting for me to leave the scene.
I get up, take my stuff from the overhead bin, walk towards the exit, walk back to get my passport out of the seat-pocket of the chair in front of me and make my way to the exit of the airplane again. I greet the cleaning guys with a soft “Hey guys!” without really expecting a response and continue my way towards the exit.
When I leave the airplane and start walking towards the luggage belt, I hear the footsteps behind me that I was afraid of hearing ever since I left the airplane. Just when I’m about to turn around to see if my suspicion is right I hear the voice belonging to these footsteps saying: “Hey you, why did it take you so long to get out of there? I almost left.” “I wish you would have” I wanted to say but instead I just turn around slowly and smile at her without saying a word.
This girl that had tortured me with her boring stories and excruciating riddles about the most uninteresting topics ever since we left Amsterdam Airport was still there. After talking to her for the first two hours of the flight I think the only words I had said to her were: “Bart. No Bart. No, my name is Bart, just like the Simpson guy.” And an occasional “Yes”, “No” and “Why?” to pretend I was listening to her monologue. Besides that, with admittedly not trying very hard, there was just no way I could interrupt her talking in any way.
When the third hour had passed and I really couldn’t take any more of her, she fortunately found it time to do her “walk around the airplane” for a couple minutes because otherwise, according to her, there was a serious chance of getting Arthritis in her legs. “You should do it as well” she said. “Hmm, maybe later” I said sniffing my golden opportunity to get rid of her for only even a little while.
I took my pillow placed it strategically against the window, put on my headphones and closed my eyes trying to get some sleep in.
Although every other person would probably have respected my move and would have gotten the hint that I was really done talking, or listening, this girl clearly didn’t.
When after half an hour I almost got really comfortable and was quite confident that she wasn’t going to bother me anymore as long as I pretended to be sleeping I felt a hand grabbing my right headphone and a very familiar voice saying: “I’m bored” in such a way any four-year old girl would say it to get attention from her mom. I wasn’t bored. Not at all. I was having the best time of this trip so far, but being the sissy and nice guy that I am I took off my headphone and started listening to her torturing stories again.
“Did you ever know that for every human being on earth, there are about 200 million insects?” “No I didn’t” I said. Nor did I care in any way, but again, being the sissy and nice guy that I am I acted as if I was intrigued by her knowledge.
Luckily for me thirty minutes later she figured out that “The devil wears Prada” was one of the movies on this flight which gave me at least two hours of private time with myself, the tunes of Damien Rice and the writings of James Frey without being disturbed by some girl sitting next to me acting like a little baby.
When changing in Seattle I silently hoped she had to go to some completely different place than me, but having figured that this wasn’t really “my day” I already expected that God was going to punish me a little more and put us both on flight 6535 with service to Portland, Oregon.
And so He did.
On this one-hour flight I learned how she broke up with her boyfriend in high school, how her dog died on her fourteenth birthday and that her favorite activity for a Friday night was cosmic bowling and that she once managed to get over a hundred points.
Just for the record, this girl listening to the name of Jennifer (but you can call me Jenny if you like) was twenty-six years of age at the time I met her and still talking about her boyfriend in high school, her fourteenth birthday and cosmic bowling.
When the plane finally landed after an hour that felt like a lifetime she rushed out of her chair to be the first one to get out of the plane while I decided to get comfortable and keep waiting until everybody in front of me was gone. This is exactly fifteen minutes before I got woken up by the stewardess friendly asking me to drag my butt out of the aircraft and the three cleaning guys dressed in bright orange prison uniforms looking at me like I’m some kind of retard.
I remember looking at the chair next to me and thinking: “Yes, she’s gone!”
Unfortunately not for very long it turned out.
The thing that bothered me about Jennifer the most, besides her being so freaking annoying was the fact that she was actually rather pretty. She really is your average girl-next-door but then with deep blue eyes, cute freckles around her nose and an incredible ass that would turn every guys head like it’s the last one he will ever see for the rest of his life. But like they always say, beauty is one thing, character is what counts. And as I didn’t really live by this rule ever before, now I could nothing but agree with it.
Chapter 2: ...
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