I arrived at the airport in plenty of time. It had been a long, hard week of work. I had traveled to the European continent for work, and the work hours, dark to dark, left no room for much personal time. Arriving at the airport in time to fly home, I found my seat, ready to dive back into my book. I found my bookmark and started reading where I had left off. I recall the airplane reaching cruise altitude. That was the last thing I remembered before hearing the crew announce preparations for landing.
Sitting next to me was a lovely seatmate and his daughter. She sat beside the window, and her Dad sat in the middle. This Dad earned the title of "lovely seatmate" because my head flopped onto his shoulder when I fell asleep. I stayed that way in my exhausted state for nearly 40 minutes. Additionally, a snack wrapper fell onto my lap during trash pickup. I have no recollection of snack offerings. I was out.
When I came too, first imagine my embarrassment. My seatmate was very kind and did a fantastic job playing off my invasion of privacy. My seatmate assured me everything was all okay. But then I noticed a snack wrapper in my lap. Perhaps my seatmate had dropped the wrapper in my lap during snack trash collection. Sure enough, when I picked up the wrapper, he shared that the wrapper had accidentally dropped on my lap while handing the fly crew member his trash. He was embarrassed. I returned the favor equally and ensured my seatmate that all was okay with the snack wrapper. He took it from my hand and quietly stuffed it into his pocket.
With the chocks under the wheels and seatbelt sign-off, I wish my seatmates a wonderful weekend and hustle away to customs, burying this little episode into my deep, dark secrets closet.