Scent of a Woman

It seems I’m pushing on a rope wherever I go.

Yesterday, it was on a trip to the Left Coast. Six hours on a plane sitting next to an enormous cloud of over-sweet cheap perfume.

Thankfully, the scent’s owner didn’t also talk my ear off.

In fact, she slept most of the flight, dozing off before we ever left the runway, eyes closed behind a pair of oversized black sunglasses.

She woke twice — once to have a Diet Coke and a second time to jab me with a diamond-encrusted index finger (one of eight digits so embellished) because she needed the rest room.

She must have met a friend along the way because she as gone a while, time enough for the air around my seat to begin to clear and my eyes to stop watering.

The reprieve was brief; before I knew it she was padding back in her sparkly flip-flops, fluffing her blonde ‘do and applying a thick coat of frosted-pink lipstick in preparation for landing.

Which she also slept through behind those sunglasses.

All these hours later, I swear I can still smell that damn perfume.