Minty Fresh Tears

My standard practice whenever I'm about to take an airplane trip is to stop by the airport bookstore and pick up a random paper-back to read in-flight. I’m terrible about remembering to pack reading material beforehand, and I’ve done this so many times now it feels like a fun tradition. By and large, with the exception of a few stinkers, its led me to stumble upon some great, fun books I might not have read otherwise.

The last time I flew, I picked up Marley & Me. I’d heard of it, and knew it as one of those Oprah-esque, “feel good” best-sellers that ends up being made into a similarly hokey movie (and it is). But being I’m a new dog owner, I was unable to resist the cover adorned with the little lab puppy or the tag-line that read “Life and love with the world’s worst dog” – I just had to know if this guy’s dog was anywhere near as bad, or worse, than Flutie.

Even though I initially scoffed , that book had me wrapped around its grubby little paw after not more than a handful of pages . By the last chapter I was a weeping, inconsolable mess. Probably shouldn’t have chosen this as my in-flight reading material a few months after getting my own puppy; all the cutesy little anecdotes felt so much more emotionally palpable.

So I’m sitting there in seat 9C not-softly crying in front of a plane full of strangers, all definitely wondering what the heck my malfunction is. They can surely see the cover of the book and know that I’m not crying over some monumentally epic piece of historic literature. Instead its clear to see that crazy lady in 9C is spilling waterworks over a freakin’ schmaltzy dog book. I might as well have started sewing a cross-stitch in front of everyone that read “Home is Where the Dog Is” or something similarly corny and embarrassing. Can you tell I’m uncomfortable with public displays of emotion?

To try and get a grip on myself, I reached down to grab a kleenex from the little travel-sized tissue pouch in my carry-on. A few seconds after wiping the tears away from my eyes and trying to un-smear my make-up, I started to feel an odd sensation where the tears had once been. At first it was just a tickle, and then, all of a sudden, oh my lord, the burning! I started wiping at my eyes frantically, trying to figure out what unholiness had infiltrated my eye-sockets. I was stumped. And now I was also the crying girl on the plane inexplicably gasping and wiping at her face in horror and pain.

Then I smelled something minty and looked down at the tissue in my hands. After rummaging around in my purse, I found out the culprit. Puff’s with Vick’s Vapo-Rub! What the heck!? Whose idea was that?! Don’t the R&D people at Puff’s know people use tissues on their eyes, not just their noses? Or am I just the only idiot who doesn’t look at the packaging before wiping menthol into their face? Hmmm, that might well be the case.

In conclusion: (a) Marley & Me was a surprisingly sweet and heart-warming book, that I am sure the upcoming Owen Wilson/Jennifer Aniston movie-version will ruin forever, (b) crying over a book about a guy’s family dog on a jam-packed airplane is embarrassing and (c) Puff’s with Vick’s shouldn’t be used to wipe away tears or will only cause more.