Seeking the inflight adventure

Movies always make airplane travel so exciting.

There are all those movies where the hero picks up the beautiful girl in the bar.

And everyone remembers the opening scene from Love, Actually as people come through the arrival gate and embrace.

Seeing as I am always travelling, I’ve always harboured a fantasy about meeting someone special or being picked up in an airport or on a plane. The man would look like Brad Pitt and fortunately have flight delays similar to mine. We’d have drinks, make small talk and then part ways.

Never in my fantasy did the man comment on my meal choice.

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“I see you’re eating salad, good for you. You’ve avoided all the burgers and fries,” said a voice.

I stopped mid-chew.

Looking at me waiting for my flight in the Winnipeg airport was a middle-aged man clutching his computer case.

Apparently eye contact was an invitation because as soon as I looked up at him, he sat down.

I looked between him and my salad — I hate people watching me eat.

I put the salad down and listened as he attempted flirt, the salad comment was the high point. He stopped talking after a five minute soliloquy that I cannot recall anything about. It was a silence where I was clearly supposed to say something.

“So you’re flying to Saskatoon,” I asked, assuming that’s why he was stopped at this gate.

Turns out he wasn’t and within minutes was preying on a girl a few gates down.

I finished my salad before pulling out my Philly-cheesesteak sandwich. He would have been so disappointed.

So the first meeting in an airport didn’t really go as I had dreamed, but then neither did the second.

I had the window seat, a new magazine and filled my iPod with a solid selection of music — I was set for a good flight.

Optimistically I had also packed some work, planning to use my flight time well.

Before we took off I introduced myself to the plaid-wearing, scruffy-looking man to my left. I’m always polite, if nothing else.

He grasped my hand, looked me up and down and promptly announced that he should have shaved and put on better clothing.

In place of Brad Pitt I was seated next to a Sarah Palin-loving, right-leaning trucker from Ohio. My dream plane date, he was not.

That and he kept drooling over the girls in the Versace ads in my magazine.

But over a couple of diet cokes and a package of M&Ms we became plane friends. In fact he nicely offered to spot me a ticket from Minneapolis to Ohio with him, if my friend didn’t show at the airport to pick me up.

Fortunately we were separated at the baggage claim … and I wasn’t forgotten by my friend.

You’d think with these two, and other similar experiences, under my belt I might think twice about the inflight fantasy.

But with the Knight and Day, and Up in the Air out of DVD, I still have lots to feed my imagination.

Despite, or perhaps in light, of the interesting people I’ve met so far, my love of airports and meeting people during travel has not diminished.

Maybe I’ll just stop looking for George Clooney.

ahill@panow.com