People from Iowa are Insane.

Considering the possibilities, I've been quite lucky when it comes to the crapshoot that is airplane seating. The people I sit next to on planes are generally about as uninterested in me as I am in them. This past weekend, my neighbor completely decimated my record of non-crazy seatmates. Thanks a lot, lady.

It all started innocently enough. There was a baby two rows up I initially pegged as a source of annoyance. I had a window seat, which I enjoy because I'm twelve, and was waiting for takeoff and the pilot’s announcement that I could listen to my music without inadvertently taking control of the plane via my MP3 player. As I was looking out the window, I heard a soft voice behind me. I turned to see an elderly woman talking to herself. Or maybe to me. It was hard to say, so I let her mutter uninterrupted. One of the only things crazier than talking to yourself in a public setting is answering a person who is obviously talking to herself.

Perhaps she was muttering to the overlarge tote bag she was carrying. It contained a breakable Annoyance to Airline Personnel, which I helped her slide underneath the seat because I am polite to people I don’t know. Most of the time. She sat down with much harrumphing, buckled her belt over both her coat and purse, and settled into her seat.

“Ladies and gentleman, we’d like to thank you for choosing Northwest Airlines,” the pilot announced. “We’re going to be experiencing a bit of a delay, we just flew in from Minneapolis and we need to fuel up. Thanks for your understanding.”

“What?” the woman next to me asked. I filled her in on the situation at hand. “Well, I don’t see why they just didn’t get gas in Minneapolis.” She kept going on and on about the gas situation. “Do you see the gas truck? Do you see it?”

“Nope, I don’t.” But my window is only the size of my face, so my view of the outside world is rather limited. She rocked back and forth, trying to see out the other side of the plane. “I don’t see the gas truck. Do you see it yet?” I’ve never seen someone so distrustful of a simple announcement in my life. Personally, I’d rather have too much fuel than too little, so fuel away, folks. I’ll wait. She then regaled me with the epic saga of Her Flight to Chicago (Thrice Diverted for Fuel) and Her Expectance of a Steak Dinner for Her Inconvenience and the Receipt of Only a Can of Soda and Some Chips.

Sigh.

A million years later, when her story was finally done, the pilot announced that we were ready to go. “Did you see the gas truck? I didn’t see the truck,” opined my new conspiracy theorist buddy. “They’re very sneaky,” I replied. Luckily, the jet engines had just kicked in and she didn’t hear me. We taxied to the runway and began to take off. The ‘fasten seatbelt’ light was on. It was a completely full flight. I was still in the window seat. Chewing off a limb would not have helped me, and if it would have, let’s just say that this would have been much harder to type. I’m telling you this so you know that there was no way – at all - for me to escape.

“So,” she began abruptly, because going insane is like getting into cold water- it’s best to do it quickly - “did you happen to catch that special that was on the other night? It was with Peter Jennings, and it was all about UFOs.”

“No… I missed that one,” I said carefully. “I remember seeing the commercials for it, though.” “Well let me tell you,” she continued, “it was fascinating. They had interviews with some of the nurses at Roswell who saw the bodies…” she went on, further in depth than any TV Guide blurb, as if to prove to me that she had actually seen the whole show. She stopped just shy of humming the theme song. “Do you know anyone?” she asked. I shook my head. “Know anyone?” I asked, confused. “Anyone who’s been abducted,” she said, matter-of-factly. Oh. Duh. Abducted. By aliens. From space.

“Uh… no?” I said slowly. She forged ahead. “I don’t either. But there are documented cases and medical records of metal implants in people’s heads. Up their noses! There are records of this. And I don’t think the government is scammin’ us.” Yeah. Here I encountered a fork in the road of our conversation. I could either choose to be amiable, or I could play with her mind. I initially opted for amiable, as I was still strapped in beside her.

“Well, I used to watch The X-Files,” I began, half jokingly, for how do you hold a serious conversation with a person like this? Her reaction stopped me cold. “Oh,” she said, her over-plucked eyebrows rising in a non-verbal scoff. “I don’t watch The X-Files.” She said the show title like it was something disgusting, to be held pinched between two fingers at arms length - this fictional drivel was apparently blasphemy in the face of a true believer such as herself.

“I know a man who said he’s seen several things in the sky, you know, questionable things. And I think I’ve seen something in the sky once or twice myself.” Hmm. Play time. “You know, when you see something in the sky like that, you should look at the time.” “The time?” she questioned. “Yeah- lots of abductees report missing time. You wake up and it’s minutes or hours later, and that’s the only way you know you’ve been abducted.” Her eyes widened. I could see her brain filing this information away for later use. That kind of scared me. “Okay. Okay,” she said. Then came the moment of truth.

“Do you believe in aliens?” she asked, looking at me over her glasses. If there was one thing I wanted to focus on, it was to NOT disagree with a crazy person in an enclosed area. I decided on ambiguity. “Well, there is a lot of universe out there,” I said vaguely. “You’re right!” she exclaimed, apparently taking my hedging as a resounding agreement with her particular brand of crazy. “And there’s so much garbage out there, too! Just orbiting the planet forever, doing nothing!”

Turns out, I had recently learned that in reality, orbits degrade. Objects orbiting us will eventually spiral down towards Earth, most likely burning up in the atmosphere. I informed Crazy McAbductee of this.

“Oh,” she said, her eyes widening in newfound respect. “Are you… a scientist?” She said the word ‘scientist’ like most people would say ‘made of chipped diamonds’ and some other people might say ‘the scion of Elvis.’ “Well, I have a degree in Biology. And I read a lot.” I explained. Let her make of that what she will. “Oh, I read a lot, too,” she replied. And then, “Well, actually I watch a lot of TV.” If you could choke on a laugh, I would have needed the Heimlich maneuver. I feel a great personal sense of pride that I didn’t laugh at any point during the conversation.

She then proceeded to tell me about another program she had seen, about someone who had written a book after spending years in the Middle East. To her, a television program about an author seemed to be appropriate middle ground for us. He had been on “one of those fast-talking programs- Hardball,” she seemed to recall. Why haven’t they made the announcement about electronic devices yet? It’s entirely possible I just didn’t hear it over her subsequent lecture about Iraq. The way things were, are and should be were apparently well within her grasp. She branched out, telling me about the class struggles and discrimination of these people she knew so well.

“And they were just killin’ Jews!” she exclaimed later in the conversation. “They’d see a Jew on the street and just kill him!” That’s horrible… would you mind keeping your voice down? This isn’t a good conversation for people to overhear bits and pieces of. I tried to dissuade her from talking by replying with a series of disinterested ‘mmhmms’ and ‘ohs,’ and she eventually quieted down. For a grand total of about five minutes.

“Do you play the piano?” she asked, apropos of nothing. “A little,” I said, wondering where this was going. “You have such long, beautiful fingers,” she said. “Oh, uh- thank you.” More silence.

She hopped from topic to topic in this manner: periods of silence sandwiched between bursts of random insanity. Topics covered include her daughter’s take on retirement (take twenty years off when you’re fifty, go back to work at seventy), the height of corn in Iowa when she was young (twenty one feet), oceanfront property in Arizona (it may not happen in her lifetime, but it’ll happen) and places she’s traveled (my God make it stop). All punctuated with just enough silence to make me think it would be okay to reach for my music right before she began talking yet again.

“How would you like to stay in Hawaii for free?” Oh sweet Lord- don’t tell me you’re a telemarketer, too? “And how would I go about doing that?” I asked, ready to give up on life. She proceeded to tell me about some mission trip/university/cult with centers all over the world. She told me the real name, but for brevity’s sake lets just call it Jesus U. Apparently you can work there and stay for free for months at a time. She cleaned rooms because she doesn’t do computers and blah blah blah sunsets and foreigners and life-affirming experiences. “That sounds like a good program,” I said, my eyes glazing over. Apparently that was the phrase that triggered the hypnotically suggested sales pitch buried deep within her brain. “Well, Howard Somethingorother had a vision in 1973- no, 1972. He saw the waves on the shores of the island and thought that instead of waves, what if they were Christians bringing the word of God to all the shores of the world?” Um, the ocean life might suffer? She continued her sales pitch, and ended by telling me the name of the program again. “I’m sure you can look it up on eBay or email,” she concluded, proving why she was sent to work scrubbing toilets and not installing hard drives.

Finally, we landed. We started to head towards the gate, but ended up having to stop about seventy yards away, because God hates me. I could see the gate through the window, tantalizingly out of reach. Madame Mental Illness decided that this was the time to tender her goodbye.

“It has been nice talking to you,” she said thoughtfully, choosing her words carefully. “I wish you… fulfillment, and… enlightenment… and I wish you to be useful.” Bzuh? As it turns out, this was less of a goodbye as it was a launching pad for a tirade about the welfare system, or something.

"People just expect the government to pay for everything. When I was growing up, we depended on our family and friends. And my social security check comes each week, and my sister gets the same amount as these people with two, three billion dollars! The same amount of money from the government! How is that fair?"

"Well, I suppose you'd have to decide on a cutoff point, and that could get-"

"Three billion dollars! That's your cutoff point! And when my house was destroyed in Florida by a hurricane, you don't just expect the government to buy you a new one!" (Atrocious switching of person hers, not mine).

"Isn't that why people buy insurance?"

"NO! You buy insurance, and suddenly someone scratches your car, and they raise your premiums! And then they kick you off your policy! And then you can't go anywhere else to get a new policy, because it's too expensive!" Evidently she had some things to get off her chest. I sat silently, afraid to move for fear she would direct her rage at me. She calmed down as we pulled up to the gate.

"It has been nice talking to you! And one day, I hope to see your name up in lights! Even though I don't know what your name is!" I sighed- what harm could it do?

"I'm Lisa." Her eyes lit up.

"Oh! I'm Lois," she exclaimed, and leaned one shoulder into me, almost conspiratorially. She winked. "We L's have got to stick together.” And we did for a while longer, because the aisle was too narrow for me to get around her and run screaming into the airport.

UPDATE: Although it seemed disturbingly plausible last night, this is NOT the Lois who taught my Language 10 class. Exonerating evidence:
Phone: Ring!
Lois: Hello?
Lisa: Can I speak to Lois [insert last name here], please?
Lois: Speaking.
Lisa: Did you go to Seattle last week?
Lois: Uh, no.
Lisa: Oh- sorry, I think I have the wrong number.
Phone: Click.

Case closed.