On the plane ride home from VidCon, I had dozed off as we soared above the clouds (the view was majestic; the voluminous cumulonimbus clouds were bright and full, like palaces in the sky). I woke up in the nick of time* because the nice man passing out snacks had just given my row their peanuts and pita chips, and he was kind enough to notice I'd woken up and was looking blearily horrified at him, thinking that I had stupidly missed my precious window of snacking opportunity.
After I happily ate my airline snack (and had carefully stowed the smaller peanut wrapper inside the pita chip wrapper), I decided to take in my surroundings. I noticed that drink orders were being taken, but this looked like a laborious process, and I was not too much bothered that it seemed like I would have to wait a long while for my own drink. I turned my gaze to the front of the cabin, where one of the (incredibly nice) flight attendants was standing, almost blocking the entrance to what I assumed was the bathroom, since I'd seen passengers go in there and I KNOW I didn't get on a flight that lets people fly the plane in the cockpit (I asked).
But as she stood there looking around, I found myself theorizing about all of the reasons she could be standing there, almost as a sentry. Maybe the bathroom was out of commission, so she had to stand guard and turn away everyone who tried to go in. Or maybe there was a threat on the plane. After all, her darting glance from passenger to passenger seemed to be rather concerned. Or maybe...
As I was fabricating the next wild scenario, her gaze turned on me. I suddenly felt that she knew I must be onto something. Or maybe she would be offended that I was staring at her, I don't know. The point is that my first instinct when I had been caught was to slink low into my chair so she couldn't see me.
Then-- and this is the part where you know for sure that I hadn't slept more than 60 minutes in the past 26 hours-- I slowly peeked over the top of the chair. Had she still been looking, she would have seen first the top of my messy I-just-danced-all-last-night-and-then-didn't-sleep-or-shower-lol hair, then my forehead an agonizing moment later... then my eyebrows, furrowed in concentration... and finally the top of my glasses and a crazed stare in my eyes.
I started to imagine that I was a creature on the wild Savannah, and I was stalking my prey. I even began an internal monologue, which went something like this:
The fearsome hunter slowly raised its deadly gaze over the blue plastic canvas foliage concealing it from it's prey.
And then I stopped internally narrating (particularly after I had imagined the blue plastic canvas covering of the airline seats a "natural" habitat) and I started thinking about my life and my choices. I'm an 18 year old girl, college-bound, with high hopes for my future. Yet I am bursting to the brim with odd whims and fancies like pretending to stalk my flight attendant. What does it mean?
Well, I'll be damned if it didn't mean I pulled out a pad of paper and wrote all this down while sipping daintily from the apple juice I requested from the flight attendant. My dears, it is time to start BEDA.
Without sleep,
Maggie
*While I was writing this, I found myself wondering where on earth the phrase "in the nick of time" came from. How does it even make sense? Is Bihm a timelord? Well, the answer to that question is obvious, but it doesn't explain the existence of the phrase, which I will explain.... now! The "nick" part of the phrase refers to a small, precise cut; a nick in your arm, finger or other extremity. Since a "nick" is a small, precise thing, something that happens "in the nick of time" happens in a small, precise time period. The more you know. Back to the top.
