The Concept of Literal Meaning

Sally sat in seat 32D, the middle seat of a row that was otherwise populated by an oversized, snoring man to her right and a squirming child to her left. To put it plainly, she was wedged in. The cabin smelled faintly of rotten eggs, or sulfur depending upon your reference point, and there was a thick mist emitting silently from the air ducks above the windows. Her eyes darted around, searching for mutual recognition. Did anyone else think that was a dead ringer for some kind of like, poisonous gas?

Physically unable to reach into her bag due to the reclining seat of the comatose person in front of her, and having lacked the foresight to retrieve her book before takeoff, she was now forced to sit quietly, hands folded, watching the repetitive advertisement loop on the screen above her head. Three hours of that would no doubt ensure the further deepening of her forehead wrinkles (Sally had recently faced the music about their existence), not to mention the havoc the cabin’s dry climate was wreaking on her pores. How had the glamour and excitement of air travel fallen so far?

Perhaps it might have been worth it to pay for the extra legroom. Where once there sat a girl unwilling to give the airlines another penny for what was already an overpriced ticket, now there was a woman who would have gladly paid the forty bucks to be delivered from this misery. She really wanted her book. When they called her row for boarding she’d been at the end of a pivotal scene where Vlad is finally face to face with his dead father who, thanks to the aid of an elaborate human face mask, has been secretly masquerading as his overzealous interior decorator. “More chintz, Vlad. You must have more chintz!” Now her mind was obsessing, wondering what Vlad would do next. Maybe there was a clue hidden in the rhythmic wheezes of the guy on her right.

Next to her, the kid had goldfish crackers spread out on the tray table in front of him. Didn’t his mother know about the germs those things harbored? Disgusting. Sally frowned. Looking across the aisle at the rest of row 32, she saw the mom in question holding a little, pink, stuffed pig over her baby’s head, her arm moving up and down towards the child in a flying motion while saying, “piggy, piggy, piggy,” over and over. Great, Sally thought, give the kid the impression that pigs do fly.

“Hey,” the little boy next to her said, jabbing her in the arm with his orange-coated finger.

“Hey,” she responded.

“You know what?”

“What?”

“Vomit is another word for throw up.”

Ah, the friendly skies. Sally raised her eyebrows and thought briefly about handing the kid a barf bag. If nothing else, it might shut him up. He might also be able to look back someday and pinpoint the exact moment he was introduced to the concept of literal meaning.

“So is puke,” she replied, amazed at the gratification gained from intellectually besting a four-year-old.

Turning her head forward, she closed her eyes and let out a long sigh. And thus the weekend began.

Upton Wallace

“Irrational Pigeons.”

“No.”

“Insomniac Pariah.”

“NO.”

“Deaf Lemons.”

“Dude, it doesn’t have to be two words.”

“Okay, The Deaf Lemons.”

“It’s too much like Blind Melon. And it’s really stupid.”

“So’s your face.”

“We need a kick ass name. A name that says, ‘We kick ass.’ Nothing about The Deaf Lemons is kick ass.”

“Meat.”

“Meat?”

“Yeah, Meat. That’s kicks ass.”

“Isn’t there already a band called Meat?”

“Probably, it kicks ass… But I thought we were going for more of like a subtly cool name. Not hipster, but like, cool.”

“Nothing fucking hipster.”

“What about Upton Wallace?”

“Who’s Upton Wallace?

“Exactly. Who’s Upton Wallace? Who is Upton Wallace? It’s genius dude.”

“Shut the fuck up.” Ulysses took a drink from his beer bottle and sat back, staring at Mitchell. This was ridiculous. They’d wasted all afternoon on this and he had to be uptown by 6 o’clock.

“Dude, how about Shut The Fuck Up? That kicks ass.”