'dem ol rigs

As I am buckling my seatbelt and turning off and stowing my electronic devices and keeping my tray table in its upright position, I'm listening to Joe Mississippi behind me.  He shouts across the aisle with Sally Immigrant for the first two hours of our flight from Sao Paulo to Houston.  He's been working on an American oil rig off the shores of Rio, she's been visiting her relatives with her 8 year old (obnoxiously talkative) son.  He says "oil" like this: "ol." She says her heart is in the United States.  He says "yeah, I miss Wal-Mart."  He's good at sleeping on planes and tells her she can smack him if he "starts in on the snorin'".  She says she thinks airplanes should fly faster and she wants to watch the Olympics on the screen in the seat in front of her.  "Do you think they get those up here?"  He's worked everywhere - 14 years of "noble" work in the Gulf of Mexico, Nova Scotia, Alaska.  She brings up Hurricane Katrina, asks if his family was affected.  She says how sad it is what happened.  He says he thinks the people there should learn to help themselves and stop asking for "handouts."  He calls them (the survivors of Katrina, this is,) greedy.  

It was a good thing the two of them stopped talking when they did, because I came very close to turning around and ripping this man's oily fingernails out one by one.  After a few moments of peace, the woman's son began narrating the entire flight.  "We're leaving!"  "Oh, the drinks are coming."  "I like Pepsi, not Coke."  "My feet are cold."  "Oh, the moon!"  "Oh, a window!"  "Oh!  We are going fast now."  "Oh!  That was bumpy."  "Don't fall asleep mom!"  "Oh, there are video games on this thing!"  ...  Once he found the video games, the ride was silent.  For as much as I dislike the mind-numbing contraptions, I thanked Buddha for inventing them on that flight.