This week’s funny human is the Plane Dresser Upper. We’ve all seen her sporting an A-line skirt, perfect make-up, and four-inch heels in line to board with her Louis Vuitton hand tote.
But why?
I get that we all used to put on our snappy Sunday best in the days of yore when planes were mysterious and special and had ash trays and full meals and nuts and a security line that didn’t require shoeless body scans.
But now we know how planes work, we don’t get pillows, and the meal is a box of cheese product and crackers for seven bucks. The plane honeymoon is over. We’ve been married for years now, so let’s act like it. Let’s wear sweatpants.
I understand Miss PDU’s reasoning. I get that it’s a common fantasy to meet that special someone in 23F and and hit up the cramped john together for a lust-filled tryst that makes for a good fantasy but probably not an actual good time.
But it’s funny to me because, regardless of the mile-high possibility, I can’t fathom the idea of stuffing my thighs into tight pants and my plane-bloated feet into heels when I know I’ll probably be stuck next to a business man in a too-tight Oxford who drinks two scotches and snores and a chatty grandmother who wants to tell me about her daughter’s rare eczema and her Bible study class. For five hours.
It’s cute that your unjaded brain is full of romantic possibility, Miss Plane Dresser-Upper, but let’s get real. Of all the times I’ve flown (over a hundred, probably), I’ve only once sat next to date material. And that didn’t work out because he decided to tell me he had a son on our first date to see R. Crumb’s illustration of the Old Testament. God was yelling about circumcision, and I said I wouldn’t circumcise my son and he said he already had. I feel like offspring should be announced either before the museum or over wine but not during foreskin talk. It was bad timing all around, making him not-the-one and averaging me zero for a hundred. So I’m going to say that the likelihood of meeting a quality guy on a plane is slim.
Some women would argue that they’re dressing up for themselves, that it’s a form of self-love. No. That is a lie. If you were really loving yourself, you’d come comfy, without a bra or makeup, in thick socks, and wearing a blow-up neck thing. Because that’s really the only way to sit comfortably in 23B for five hours. Or ten if you’re cool and going internationally.
But really… The main reason to not dress up on a plane is that heels are not allowed on the emergency blow-up slide. Miss Plane Dresser-Upper, you didn’t read the information provided in the seatback pocket, did you? I’m outraged.
