Plane Friends

For those of you who don’t me very well, I’ll just say it. I’m kind of a freak. One of my favorite parts about Thanksgiving break happens before I even get home. It happens on the plane ride there. I just can’t help it. I love making plane friends.

Airplanes are one of the very few places where we can talk to complete strangers for a few hours straight without seeming like too much of a creeper. These people sit next to us, strapped in even, and before they know it they are spilling their whole life stories. People don’t think they like to talk about themselves, that is, until you get them started. Then, they just can’t stop. I sometimes pity the soul who ends up next to me. He sits down unsuspectingly, thinking he’s going to have a nice, quiet two hours to get a good chunk of his Harry Potter book read, when suddenly the plane lands and he’s read a whoppin’ two pages. This is what happened to my latest plane friend. We’ll call him Taylor.

When I sat down next to Taylor, he gave me one of those sort-of-look-at-you, half-smiles with a mumbled “How’s it goin’?” There was nothing terribly remarkable about him. He was probably 27 or so, wore jeans, a dark fleece jacket and carried a backpack. The average traveler. It didn’t take long for me to discover he was traveling home to California after attending the Boise State/Fresno State football game the night before. This also explained his rather glum expression, as his beloved team got smashed by a pitiful 51-0, not to mention the abundance of Boise State hoodies, hats, and jackets that decorated the surrounding passengers on the plane. It was not a good place to be Fresno fan, nor was it a good time to be the brother of Fresno State’s starting quarterback. Unfortunately for Taylor, he was both.

After some prodding, Taylor told me all about his brother’s football career, or hopes of one. He told me what football means to him and his family, and what it feels like to stand on the sidelines watching one of his guys get tackled—again. I had no idea when I was watching the game on TV at my uncle’s house the night before that I was looking at my future plane friend.

Taylor told me he was a dairy nutritionist. I almost said something about how my roommate is allergic to milk so she was probably thankful for people like him, and then I praised the heavens that I didn’t when he said, “Yeah, so basically I figure out what cows should eat to make the best milk for the lowest price.” Cows. Right. That would have been embarrassing.

This here, my friends, is the secret to making plane friends. Who cares about dairy nutritionists, or even knows they exist? I didn’t. What I thought was a disgusting, boring, cow-touching, poo-searching, lame job was, to him, exciting, important, and needed. So, for those two hours, I let him believe that I thought a dairy nutritionist was the coolest job on Earth. And oh, did I learn! Did you know cows have four stomachs, and after you get past the first three it’s basically human nutrition? Or do you know how much it costs to feed a cow for a day? Go ahead, ask me.

It costs $5.91.

We started talking about what music we like, and before we landed, he offered me a couple CD’s of music (which, for the sake of this story, I will spare the ethical issue that presents) and showed me more artists I need to look up. When the plane landed, we both grabbed our bags, wished each other the best, and said goodbye.

So what is the point of this story? I’m never going to see Taylor again. I’ll probably never know if his brother gets signed or how his business does; and yet, because of him, I was changed. For two hours, this stranger let me glance into his life; into what he knows and feels. He expanded my view and sharpened my vision of the world out there.

He reminded me that the next time I’m on a plane, I should really take a second to say hello to the fellow traveler sitting next to me. Besides, it’s a whole lot more fun than awkward silence.