<span style="color: #80FF00"><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="font-style: italic">As she sat waiting for the 13 hour flight to begin, Shanan's mood plummetted. She found her thoughts settling into a sardonic, irritable commentary in her head. Aware that she was merely grumpy due to stress and fatigue, perhaps hunger, she struggled to wrestle her emotions into place. Her expression remained passive and relatively pleasant, if a little bored, but, if one were to look closely, a hint of her mood would possibly be seen in the tension around her eyes, the set of her jaw. <br/><br/>Predictably, after a crowd of tourists and business men and women crowded on board the Boeing 777 bound for Tokyo, the flight attendants finally began their customary pre-flight rain dance. Shanan tuned out the woman currently walking down the isle demonstrating with the rediculous life vest as the overhead speakers pleasantly described to them how they were expected to react should the plane suddenly plummet into the ocean.<br/><br/></span>Right...<span style="font-style: italic"> she thought, </span>People will definitely think clearly enough to follow these steps in an orderly fassion as they plummet to their deaths. I'm certain that would be the case. Not at all unrealistic.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Leaning forward slightly, she pulled her tablet from the magazine pouch in front of her and pulled up the notes and documents she'd need to review for the meeting with her potential new clients.<br/><br/>Of course this moment, as she had finally managed to distract herself with work and tune out the flood of irritation around her, a nasally voice sounded from beside her and she looked over at the man sitting there. She had failed to notice his arrival, and now wished that the blissful ignorance of his presence could have lasted longer. <br/><br/><a class="postlink" href="http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/ww212/stanmexico/teh_combover_list_view.jpg">[ img ]</a><br/><br/><br/>Secretly, throughout her life, she'd enjoyed using a particular term to describe unpleasant people to herself for years. She was far too professional to use the term aloud, as it would be guaranteed to cause offense, but this man fit the description perfectly. He was the very definition of... a Goober. His crooked, twisted teeth stuck out in an extreme over-bite. His coke-bottle glasses gave his dim-witted eyes, which were completely devoid of all intelligence, a buggy look. His nose, if it could be called that, was large, protruberant, and currently excreting mucus at a prodigious rate. His hair line seemed to have attempted to disassociate itself from such an unattractive face, retreating so far up over the top of his head that she could no longer see it. He had, of course, attempted to hide this fact by combing a few hairs over to cover his shiny scalp. The combover, however, must have been difficult to keep in place. As far as she could tell, he'd used the mucus currently streaming from his nose to grease his hair in place. Needless to say, she was beyond thrilled to find him currently addressing her in a congested, nasally voice. His tone was pleasant, though not nearly enough to compensate for his aversive appearance. He was seated in a slouched, haphazard posture, leaning over to address her so that she was granted an extreme close-up view of his features.<br/><br/>His words didn't even register clearly in her mind at first, as she was too distracted by the effort to not glare at the poor man. After all, it wasn't ALL his fault that she was in such a horrible mood. She mentally reviews the words she'd heard him speak without listenning. She wasn't sure, but she thought he'd inquired after the device in her hand, which he seemed not to recognize. Where did he live? A cave? How could he not recognize a tablet?<br/><br/>She looked down at the tablet to give herself an excuse to look away. With a great effort, she tried to answer his question in short, clipped terms, then close the subject. But of course, he wouldn't have it, and she was inevitably roped into a long discussion on the nature of Tablets.</span></span></span>