Inflight Hamstering

Have you ever wanted
to slap someone? I don't mean punch, or claw, or hair-pull, or even spit on. I mean full-on slap someone across the face. Like at the apex of a dramatic film noire when the leading man has said something particularly crass towards a classy dame. She rears back and SLAP - leaves a crimson, five-fingered 'Fuck You' across that manly, stubbly cheek.

God be damned! I wanted to slap a bitch this weekend! His name was Gerald, or Thomas, or Henry, some very insipid, uninspired, lower-class name. I was delightfully enjoying a serving of empanadas at Tomas' and Douglas' festive Memorial Day backyard barbecue. A polite gentleman, Roger, and I were discussing an online roleplaying game, when the cur spat, "Oh, those games are for people with no imagination."

The glare I shot him could have frozen the Sahara. I replied, "Am I imagining things or did you imply that I have no imagination?"

He looked at me confused by my trippingly talented use of the English tongue. Then I sat aside my faberware, recycled plate and slowly leaning in close quickly slapped him across the face! SLAP!

At least that's what I imagined saying and doing. Instead I curtly replied, "I certainly have an imagination." And left it at that. The gall of him to imply to my face that I have no imagination! It was a verbal slap across MY face.

He continued on. "We went to see The Producers. I paid $500 for tickets and they were the worst seats. The show was horrific and the actors were amateurs and I've had a pole up my ass my entire life!"

HE ONLY WISHES

This man was such a drama queen he made me look downright brawny. How dare he upstage me. God, how I wanted to slap him right across his pouty, brazen face.

I'm not a person who particularly turns to violence. I tend towards an icy glare or obvious harrumphing, sometimes even a catty remark. On the flight home from a recent celebrity speaking engagement in, God bless me, Georgia, I was wedged in dreadful coach on an oversold, tiny Delta jet. It was so small, I was certain hamsters were piloting the dreadful machination.

Hamsters wearing tiny pilot's outfits and oversized pilot's hats.

Hamsters would be in every seat. Some wearing business suits, two wearing nun's habits. One mother hamster in reading glasses holding her baby hamster. The other hamsters glaring and harrumphing because they certainly don't want to be on an oversold flight home near a baby hamster. The stewardess hamsters are wearing smart, pressed azure outfits and hats. All the hamsters are nibbling on in-flight sunflower seeds.

If only my flight were so joyful. A pale woman with a dark curly mess of hair was determined to shove her over packed suitcase into the overhead bin next to me. Her flat butt was blocking my view of life and finally I glared, harrumphed and bitched, "God, just go check it."

Possessed with suppressed rage, she-hulk forced the carry-on into the bin and cut her eyes into mine the entire deliberately slow walk to the rear of the plane. And I cut my eyes right back at her goddamnit. I would have slapped her too. I would have slapped them both.

Gerald-Whats-His-Name and Suitcase Woman both standing side by side SLAP-SLAP, then I would have brought it back in the opposite direction, SLAP SLAP, then again SLAP-SLAP-SLAP-SLAP and again SLAP-SLAP-SLAP-SLAP1!

Then I'd have tossed two creampies into both their faces. All three of us would crack up like a Carol Burnett sketch gone wrong and the in-studio audience of hamsters would roll over laughing. A few of them nibbling sunflower seeds.

Eh, I still want to slap that bitch at the party. No imagination? Harrumph!