“YOU TURNED MY EIGHT-HUNDRED-DOLLAR HAIR INTO A KINDERGARTEN CRAFT PROJECT!”
Thirty-five thousand feet above the ground, a young woman stood in the airplane aisle with one hand tangled in her own hair and the other pointing straight at me.
Every head in the cabin turned.
She looked ready to commit murder.
And I was the seventy-three-year-old grandmother who had apparently ruined her life.
The strangest part?
Two hours earlier, neither of us could have imagined how this flight would end.
The Woman in the Duty-Free Line
Two hours before the screaming, I was standing in a duty-free line with a little present for my granddaughter, Emily.
The line was moving at the speed of a sleepy tortoise. The reason was standing directly in front of me.
She looked about twenty-eight. Her blonde hair fell almost to the backs of her knees, and she held her phone at arm’s length, filming herself.
Her rhinestone-covered phone case said BRITTANY, just in case she forgot her own name.
“Okay, guys, help me choose. This one or this one?”
She held up two perfume bottles for her viewers.
“Ma’am, should I ring those up?” the cashier asked.
“One second. My chat is deciding.”
At my age, “one second” ought to come with a chair.
“I know! They’re both gorgeous. Maybe I’ll just take both.”
The cashier announced the total. Brittany blinked for half a second, then smiled at her phone.
“Beauty is an investment, right?”
She paid, grabbed a tester, and sprayed her neck, wrists, and, for good measure, her hair.
The perfume cloud reached me a moment later. I coughed.
“Excuse me, dear. That’s quite a strong fragrance.”
“It’s French.”
“I don’t think the French intended us to taste it.”
The cashier made a noise like a kettle about to boil.
“Guys, apparently my perfume is offending people now,” Brittany announced to her audience.
Then she flipped her hair over her shoulder.
It landed squarely across my face.
“Careful, sweetheart. Your hair just hit me.”
“Then don’t stand so close.”
“I’m standing in line.”
“Personal space is still a thing.”
I took a step back. She whipped her head around again, and her hair caught my hand.
“Does it always need that much room?” I asked.
“What?”
“Your hair.”
“It’s called volume.”
“I see. I thought Cousin Itt had finally found a conditioner.”
The cashier lost the battle to remain professional.
“Whatever,” Brittany muttered. “Some people just can’t appreciate good hair.”
At the door, she turned back.
“Maybe you’re just jealous.”
“Of the perfume? Not particularly.”
She left, but the smell lingered like a guest who hadn’t noticed the party was over.
The cashier scanned my granddaughter’s present.
“Lucky granddaughter.”
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