A Poets View

The flying melon ball story is a true story which took place in March of 2008.  The story until now has been kept by a handful of close friends only because I was a bit embarrassed by it when it happened.  Now, almost a year later it is no longer embarrassing but humorous.

March 2, 2008 I am on a non stop Cathay Pacific flight from San Francisco to Hong Kong.  Because I won a writing contest, the flight was free and I was seated in the second seat from the aisle in a four seat row in the economy section.  It was a 14 hour flight and since I do not enjoy flying, 14 hours can be a pain in the you know what.

There was this young, handsome Asian guy sitting next to me in the aisle seat.  We were about 12 hours into the flight and by this time I was tired, anxious, claustrophobic and just all around delirious.  The flight attendants began serving our breakfast.  I might also add that Cathay Pacific serves great food.  In any case we had begun eating and I opened my melon ball fruit cup.  I took my fork, which in hind sight I should not have done and tried to pick up the melon ball.  In the blink of an eye the melon ball goes flying in between the legs of this cute Asian guy next to me.  He looked down and I looked over and I spotted the ball which was in a let’s just say awkward position.  He looked over at me and I pointed to where the melon ball had landed.  He tried to grab it but obviously could not see it.  Without even thinking, now mind you I mentioned I was tired, delirious etc… I reached over, in between his legs and started feeling for the melon ball as he did the same.  After a few long seconds,  voila! He found it, grabbed it and we went on with our breakfast.  I then took a short nap and when I awoke, we were about to land and I realized what I had just done.  All I could think was this guy either thinks I’m an idiot or a pervert.  Which is worse?

All I can say is had I not been on such a long flight in an exhausted and delirious state and the same situation had occurred I would have either not been feeling around for that melon ball or I would have done the same thing and had a grand old time on that flight.