SuperGurl

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Thanks, Nancy!

I think it might have been my return flight from the shooting festival last year, but I can’t be sure. I took three long-distance work related trips requiring cross country flights in 2007. I know that’s not exactly a crapload of travel for most people, but it is for me.

And I almost always flew home on a red eye. That is a negative common in single momming it, gotta get the frick home to retrieve the kids. (And while we’re on the subject, I often blame this for my road rage issues, as well.) And the early hour combined with the last leg of a two part journey, makes the specifics a little hard to recollect.

But I was sitting on a plane and I think the hour was in the vicinity of ten am. I am crammed in the very bowels of the plane, just a row or two from the aircrapper, when I look up to see a camo clad soldier heading right down the aisle toward me. As luck would have it, he was in the middle seat right beside me. I thanked him for his service and he refused my thanks whole heartedly.

He told me he was only a contract worker in Iraq, even though the uniforms were similar. He did not want me to confuse him with our soldiers, as he (also) held them in the highest regard and didn’t want anyone to think he fraudulently measured up to the American Soldier’s level of badassery.

He really was humble, crazy humble, which impressed me when I learned he was doing convoy security, or some such. Which if you think back to that time, the first wave of the surge, convoy security seemed to me to be a fairly dangerous place to willingly go. So it made little matter to me who was paying him, his role seemed the same.

And this type of thing never happens to me either, so I was well prepared for disappointment and I got it. No sooner had he become all chatty with me, when he turned and responded to the loud speaker. I missed it, they called out his name and I didn’t hear it, but of course, he did. He was flying stand-by for a passenger who had made it to the gate. They reopened the hatch and escorted my gorgeous flight neighbor away.

Most the other passengers yelled out, “Awe, you can’t do that!” but he was smiling from ear to ear. Just a few air miles from home, he would not have his joy depleted by an expected flight delay. Plus, he had been flying for 24 hours straight from Iraq when I met him. I don’t think a couple more hours mattered much to him.

The crotchety old lady that took his place was little consolation. Although, if experience is any indicator, I should have seen it coming. I’m way more of a grandma magnet than a hot soldier magnet, so it kind of made sense in the end.

Still, why can’t I meet a real man like that? How can anyone’s luck be this bad? You happily marrieds make me want to puke my ever lovin guts up sometimes. The audacity of your nookie satiated lifestyles, you disgust me. I have tried everything and refused nothing. I have been through enough fix-ups, blind dates, and varied internet dating venues to make any grown person throw in the towel for good. It’s way ugly out here in singleland.

Anyway, with reluctance I recently made a conscious effort to venture back out there. It didn’t take but a week to remember why I gave it up the last time. Man, people creep me out so easily online. It’s a wonder I blog at all.

I did meet one diamond in the rough. Unfortunately, though he represented himself as a fireman/paramedic in a neighboring town, it turns out he is working in Afghanistan temporarily. We had been talking back in forth for a couple of weeks before he sent me a recent picture.

It was bothering me how much he reminded me of my brief encounter with my stand-by guy, but I didn’t know how to express it. How do you tell someone that you might be interested in that you once met a guy at the airport for five minutes and you can’t get him off of your mind? Yeah, no red flags there.

So I sat on my hands. Finally, about a week ago, I slipped and told him he reminded me of someone I met briefly once at the airport flying stand-by. He answered almost instantly, “Was it in Houston last year? That happened to me flying home from Iraq last summer.”

Follow up pictures and our joint recollections of the story confirmed it. A year almost has gone by, but it’s him. He comes home in three weeks. I am trying not to overreact. Trying not master plan significance into this remote far-out coincidence, but it’s difficult kids. Cosmically, it’s just too random for me to accept.