The Pitbull Lady

Early morning air travelers belong to two categories, the groggy or the grumpy. I'm the groggy kind. My weekly trip to Bangalore is usually on the 6 AM Sahara Airways flight. This means that I'm usually up by 3:45 AM to get ready, when I say 'I get up', I use the term loosely since it usually just refers to my body, my mind wakes up after a hot cup of south indian filter coffee at 8:14 AM.

This one trip was no exception, I sleep walked through to the baggage screening area, lugging my two bags along. Suddenly I was rudely pushed away. As I regained balance, I spied a vision in brown rushing past me towards the queue. This turned out to be a lady about 5 ft no inches in height wearing a snarl on her face like that of a Pitbull terrier (atleast like the ones I've seen on TV) . She threw an 'excuse me' at me, which sounded more like a four lettered swear word, ringing a jarring note on that idyllic morning. Her face, I saw, had a natural nastiness that made it ugly, too bad I thought, she might even be pretty if she smiled.

As I reached that line, I could see her pushing her cart against the person ahead of her and trying to get that person off the line. The fact that the Pitbull lady had the permanent snarl on her face seemed to unsettle the sleepy bunch of people in that queue. Soon after, she abandoned any pretenses of being on that line and moved forward directly. This bundle in brown had such a forceful personality that people rather than complaining just let her go. No one knew how to handle her and in any case no one wanted any piece of her. We were just letting her get away with pushing us around, writing it down to this being someone who was late for a flight.

Anyway, I scanned my baggage and while turning the corner to the check-in counter,I could hear loud high pitched growling/shouting which went something like 'how dare you ask me to pay extra for my luggage, you go check your machine, it's not working' and 'do you know who you are talking to??? I want to speak to your manager!'. I immediately realised that the Pitbull lady was at work there too. The counter girl looked like a hunted rabbit, her eyes seemed to desperately search for some help. None was forthcoming. Soon the counter girl gave in and allowed what must have been 7-8 Kgs of extra weight. Apparently no one had a clue as to handle this pint sized pain. As she left the counter, she left on her wake a lot of people gaping at her rudeness, she didn't look like she gave a damn.

When my turn came at the counter I flashed my best "Have a nice day smile" at the harried girl who looked like she might be going through a nervous breakdown. 'Was the flight on time?' I politely encountered to which the flustered girl could only nod.
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We boarded at 5:40 AM. I settled down in my seat (7C), accepted an orange juice from the smiling flight attendant when I saw the Pitbull lady approaching with her usual scowl lighting up her face. What do you know, she was 7A. I silently mouthed a swear word as I got up to let her in. Soon after I found myself helping her stow up her baggage in the overhead bin since she couldn't reach up, then found myself removing the bags again on her request so that she could get her reading material out. She took it for granted that I would do this, I guess she had the experience in getting people to do what she wanted them to do. I shook my head and sat down.
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This lady was dispensing bad attitude with a zeal of an overloaded vending machine.

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She moved into her window seat and buried her nose into her book. Atleast she was very focussed on it, thank god but I wasn't taking any chances, so I kept my eyes averted from her side. As the flight taxied, the cabin lights were dimmed. I could hear a growl next to me. I turned and looked at her. She wanted me to switch on her reading light since she couldn't reach it. Cursing the guy who invented the concept of chivalry, I reached up and turned the light on. I promptly got a scowl & a growl for a thank you, a ray of sunshine she sure wasn't. I was dreading the 40 minute journey sitting next to this lady, I had a very busy day ahead and this lady was well on her way to screwing up my start.

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When I settled back, I suddenly caught a glimpse of the book she was holding, Hot Chocolate for the Mystical Lover by Ariele Ford. I choked back my laughter. Well well well, what do you know, huh?

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As the pitbull read her book, I settled back on my seat. I couldn't but help thinking about the poor bastard who was stuck, getting all that hot chocolate lurvin from her. Somehow now my journey didn't appear so long & bad after all, whatever happened in the next 40 minutes, my life was nowhere close to being as fucked as that guy's.

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Contented, I slowly closed my eyes to grab some shut eye. For some, life really is a bitch ain't it?