Al aire

It's time to admit it, it's official, I'm a plane curmudgeon, a troublesome person, someone to avoid at high altitudes. That's right, folks, I don't know why, but if by chance you happen to be sitting next to me on a plane, for your own good, I recommend you don't speak loudly, don't kick my seat, don't you dare elbow me, shout, or be rude in general because I lose my patience and have an amazing knack for causing aerial scenes.

It's true that I won't keep quiet on the ground either if something bothers me, I promise that even though I'm hot-blooded, above all I'm polite, but at 10,000 feet, the lack of oxygen in the brain makes everything much, much worse.

My parents still remember with horror the trip to London where I threatened three teenagers sitting behind us that I would wait for them at the exit if they didn't listen to me for the third time and stopped screaming like idiots for once. Coming back from Milan, the wonderful secretary of the Consort was utterly flabbergasted when she heard me raise my voice above the captain's loudspeakers to tell a rude person in my broken Italian that if she didn't understand that the armrest had to be shared and stopped giving me nasty elbows, “la próxima vez que tu tocare el mio Corpo io ti stronzo la cara, capicci?” (the next time you touch my body I will punch you in the face, understand?). Tremendous. And so, an endless number of anecdotes in which, according to me, I am dispensing justice in a territory that people consider neutral and where they decide to roam freely without education or manners, such as airspace. Just yesterday, after receiving severe kicks in my kidneys, being woken up and mercilessly shaken by the old man behind me, and incredulously realizing that the guy was doing it on purpose because he thought I had reclined my seat too far, I admonished him in front of all his grandchildren, loudly, for his inability to use language instead of physical aggression. I sarcastically pointed out what a great example he was setting for his offspring and informed him that if he had asked politely, I would have adjusted the position, but from now on and for the next 10 hours, he would have to be folded up like a sardine because I, no longer, grandpa, was not going to move the backrest one millimeter, and if he touched it again, we would stop talking and start acting.

Now that I think about it, I scare myself. The poor Consort doesn't even flinch; he pretends not to know me, and once it's all over, I usually catch a faint smile on one side of his mouth, as if to say... my wife is causing trouble again.

And you, does your character change at high altitudes?

You must be wondering what this has to do with fashion. Nothing, my friends, nothing. Just to tell you that I've come to the other side of the world on vacation. To San Francisco. We will continue to report with a 9-hour time difference.

A huge hug,

The Countess with a massive jet lag