Soon the tiny little spot(representing our aircraft) on the map spotted very close to the International date line. I sat back up in my seat, craned my neck a bit just in case my eyes would meet a big thick metal line engraved with the words ‘International Date Line‘. Silly, I know! But the excitement of the moment had long surpassed the reality of geography. I was thinking of words and phrases like antipode, 180°, GMT, Prime Meridian, Pi’s journey. I was excited. Very Excited. And as of this very moment we were flying over it. First time ever. Mary looked at me and could tell how very excited I was: Well, she said with a smile, I don’t think you’d get a certificate for crossing the date line. We had a laugh but I was still excited. I had momentarily stopped listening to the Jazz, the organs in my body were confussed, some were in the tomorrow and some in the yesterday and the remaining very confussingly in the present! How Bizarre!

One of the flight attendants serving our side of the aisle dropped an empty plastic cup on me. It surely wasn’t purposeful, we were going through a little turbulence over the pacific. I handed it back with a smile and said: Go on hit me, I know you did that on purpose. She snatched it right back. Jammed her pink stiletto on the left foot brake in a mid-air staccato on the aisle trolley, bent low and forward towards me, our eyes met, I could smell her berry lip-gloss and see her Shiseido foundation. Mary was reading, but obviously the commotion caught her attention. She gradually lowered her book just enough to see what was going on and in a second pulled the book right up again. The air-hostess grabbed(well almost) my right palm and said in a low voice, ‘Well huuney, people on da flight, knowwhatimean, nah, I dun remember dem, b-u-t-t‘ …pointed her index finger at my nose with her torso bent forward and her face in my face, ‘You, I’ll remember. i like da gud ones. You maaaa maan i’ll remember you‘.

I have heard Nan’s southern accent at times, but when it comes out in real life all so sudden… I didn’t know how to react. I smilied. She winked and tip-toed her trolley away. I was almost going to say hey I’ll be flying back United too…. but she had wandered off a bit in the super spacious boeing.