I hate Priceline. We made an agreement, me and Priceline, that I would pay them $207 and some change if they would get me directly from New York City to San Francisco. I know I'm going to get charged on my credit card, but, on their end, 12 hours of flying time, with a stop in Dallas does not a direct flight make. They are liars. I hate them. Still, $207 for a flight from New York to San Francisco is pretty cheap, no?

On the first leg, the American Airline plane smelled so much like ass I gagged. I always thought it was a bad thing that I couldn't really smell while I smoked. Now I'm missing it a bit. It's like a whole new world of ass-smelling things have opened up for me, particularly in public, and particularly in New York. But who knew airplanes smelled that bad? I wonder if there's a selection you can make on Priceline requesting non-ass-smelling flights.

So if we're keeping tabs so far, it's me against Priceline and American Airlines.

Dallas to San Francisco was a whole different story, however. They had me on one of those Deeee-Lux flights; it was a wider plane with the extra row of seats in the middle, and I think they might have been burning aromatherapy candles before we boarded. Or maybe it didn't smell at all and I was just happy I could breathe out of my nose again. After six hours of travel already, I didn't care. I was just happy there was more leg room.

Clearly this is the beginning of an abusive relationship between me and American Airlines. Slap me around and make me smell bad things, and then give me extra leg room and tell me you never meant it; you're just stressed out from the office, all those people trying to upgrade to first class when there just isn't enough room; baby, baby, don't you understand?; you try serving four hundred beverages from a cart!

Sigh.

I sat next to Ray and down one from Rebecca. Ray is what we in the flirtation biz like to call, "Quite the charmer." He was supposed to be sitting in first class because of his frequent flier miles, but had been bumped back to coach with us commoners. He wasn't pleased that his desires had been ignored, but when I approached he announced, "You know, I wasn't too happy about sitting here in the middle, but now that I'm sitting between two ladies, I'm thinking it's not too bad." He then laid out the widest grin in the state of Texas, and since they like to do things big there, you can guess how it must have looked.

My other rowmate (Sectionmate? Seatmate? Whatever.) Rebecca wasn't short on charm, either, but maybe that's just me falling for those southern accents again. She had the whole blond thing going, with a nice dose of curves. She was my age, and was on her second marriage, but seemed no more bitter for it. In fact, she seemed less bitter than I am.

She spoke of her 16-year old stepson for a while. "He's such a good kid when he's not doing drugs," she said. She had a whole theory that the whole reason why he went to AA was so that he could smoke cigarettes without getting in trouble. Later in the flight she handed us a CD of classic rock guitar music that her stepson had released when he was 13. I can't remember the title of the album (I left it in Joc and Slap's car), but I do remember one of the titles of the songs was Jug of Life (which prompted me to make "Jugs of Life" jokes about my breasts later that night after they picked me up, much to Joc's amusement. Or maybe she was just being polite, and I was the one laughing.)

We discussed smoking a bit, as both Rebecca and I had quit, but Ray was a heavy smoker. Caffeine and nicotine were his only vices, but we all know those can be big ones. He quit drinking, he told us early on in the flight, because he didn't like the way he behaved when drunk. He'd done his share of partying though, he informed us, and I believed him.

But the smoking he couldn't quit. His wife was an oncology nurse ("She works seven days on, seven days off," he said, as if it were a mantra.), and had tried every which way to help him stop.

"If I quit," he said, "Big Mama's gonna take me to the Harley store."

Ray offered to buy us both a drink but I declined. Rebecca accepted. She said she wanted a beer. When the flight attendant pulled up with her cart and explained the options, Ray turned to me and whispered, "Which is better? Amstel Light or Miller Lite?"

"Amstel," I whispered.

Ray ordered Rebecca an Amstel.

It reminded me that I'm never, ever going to be a proper girl, but that I'm happy that men will always wonder what I think.

Later, while Rebecca flipped through her copy of Rosie's, Ray and I discussed, in hushed tones, my future career options. Ray manages crews that set up enormous stage and light shows at conventions and travels constantly. I'm guessing he's seen it all, and he's not spilling a thing. In fact, at one point he said, "What goes on the road, stays on the road."

He was very encouraging to me. It was very sweet. I felt like we were conspirators, and that, I think, was a great source of his charm. He had the ability to make you feel like he was on your side. I also found him charming because he said, "George W. Bush is a crook and a daddy's boy. He's never worked a hard day in his life. I'm not saying I'm for one or the other, but all I know is the Democrats seem to be for the working man. Aah...let's not talk about politics."

He wasn't willing to talk about politics, but he was willing to talk about his past. It came out at the end of the flight. He moved out at 13 because, he mumbled, "Daddy drank." He moved in with a friend's family, he said, and then laughed, "Well, they drank, too, but at least they weren't my parents."

He and his friend got an apartment when they were 15. He barely graduated high school. And now, I'll bet, he clears double what I do in a year, and he lives in Texas where the money actually means something. Remember: he was the one supposed to be flying first class, not me.

He made his peace with his daddy, he told us. His mother died a few years back of breast cancer. I didn't sense an ounce of regret of his voice about anything in his life, only pride and resilience. It must be amazing to carry yourself so well through life.

Both Rebecca and Ray wanted to read my writing. I hesitated to give any information to Rebecca because she mentioned she had been cruising through the Bible lately, looking for a little sustenance.

"It can be a little risque at times," I said.

"Oh, that's ok," she said, and patted her bag which I presumed held the Bible. "I read it, but I'm open."

Before the end of the flight, Ray mentioned that he never, ever talked to people in planes.

"I just sit and look straight ahead," he said. "I feel like I've gone through therapy with you two."

I think maybe if Ray flew coach he would have conversations more often.

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