The Man Who Wouldn’t Stop Talking

January 7, 2010

On a flight yesterday which flew at 6:30 AM (which means I had to be at the airport by 4:30 which means I had to be up by 3:30) there was a man who appeared to be in 60′s who could simply not stop talking.

And if he had the gift of gab, it wouldn’t have been so torturous, but he was just going on and on about the most mundane things, in a voice loud enough for several rows of passengers to hear.

Since I was so tired anyway, thank goodness, it was easy enough to turn his voice into white noise. After 2 hours, however, with some turbulence having woken me up from my slumber, I noticed that there was silence in his row. “Oh good, he did stop,” or so I thought.

As I headed for the toilet, who would be there standing next to the poor flight attendants but the old man yapping away.

At first I didn’t recognize him, thought he was one of the crew, but then did a double take when I heard his familiar voice. Only then did I notice that the other two standing next to him were smiling courteous smiles and nodding their heads now and again but nary speaking a word.

“How long has he been talking to them?” I wondered, almost out loud. Why can’t this man stop talking?

Eventually, and this is after 20 minutes or so, he finally took his seat because the captain had started addressing us over the p.a. system to let us know that we were descending and approaching our destination soon.

This triggered a boy-like response in the old man, whereupon he started talking, more animatedly now, to his seatmate whom he had woken to get to his window seat. Very expressively, he gesticulated his monologue until we could see the land below. Now, almost ecstatic, he persuades the obsequious young lady to occupy the middle seat next to his window seat so that she can see the “big” land below better.

He talked and talked and talked until we landed and even then as we taxi’d to our gate, he had a comment about everything. When everyone stood up, his companion immediately fled to the back to get her things (or just to run away) and he was bereft of an ear so he decided to inch his way down the aisle to the front where there were gentlemen of similar age to him. Needing to talk to someone, he asked the man who had been sitting in the front row if the leg room was better and was it worth paying extra for it. This was just a ploy to solicit a response so he could then talk about all the times he flew, how often he got bumped up to business or first class, and how often he flew and where …

and then the gates opened. Whew.

I wonder who he’s talking to now.

Posted in Imaginary Worlds