What my chest is telling you

Right now my chest would tell you that I like really good beer.

And most often, if there aren't words across my chest, it would most often say in varying degrees, "What a huge rack!"

Sometimes it also screams, "I dare you to look!"

A few years ago, I gained a lot of weight. Something like 40 pounds in 3 months. There were several reasons, a couple of them medical, but mostly it was due to beer, cheese burgers, fries, and enchiladas. Not knowing how to dress my new body, I tended to just wear huge t-shirts.

All fine and well, until a couple years later (when I had lost some but not all of the weight). I looked, really looked, at a picture of myself and realized huge t-shirts were doing nothing for me or my spectacular tits. The shirts hung in such a way that masked the fact that I actually did have a waistline.

Solution: tighter t-shirts. Shirts with tailoring. Shrits that flare at the waist. Shirts that show the cleavage. Because I had forgotten my number one rule in dressing: It's All About The Cleavage. Or at least the Huge Rack.

Which leads me to tell you about the trip back from North Dakota on Sunday. I was dropped off a little early by The Boy and His Boys. I guess there's a hunting season just for youth in North Dakota, and so my nephews were anxious to ditch their embarrassing weird aunt and head to the backwoods.

This turned out to be good for me, because instead of playing CNN in the airport, they had the NASCAR race on. I couldn't have timed it better; the race ended just as they started pre-boarding. I had a nice conversation with a couple who were also watching the race.

Then in Minneapolis (because Grand Forks is the ultimate "You can't get there from here" town), since my flight wasn't late, I had a 2-hour layover. So I ate, I shopped, I eavesdropped on a cell phone conversation....which leads me to another aside:

Confidential to that woman talking on the phone by the Burger King in the MSP airport last Sunday: Maybe if you were home paying attention to your kids, they wouldn't run interference for each other when you call them, and they wouldn't be flunking classes and grade levels, and they would actually listen to you. You know, instead of pleading with the answering machine for someone to pick up the phone, and then telling them ten times in a row to listen to you. I know you're probably a single mom, and your job, which you worked hard to get so it finally earns them a decent lifestyle, requires you to travel....but, DAMN. If getting a non-traveling job will get you kids who will pay attention when you communicate with them, and will keep them from flunking 6th grade, DO IT, WOMAN! Screw the nice clothes. A good kid in a pair of Levi's is much preferable to a dropout in a pair of Lucky Brand.

Okay, I'm back to my own story now.

The Minneapolis to Dallas flight was overbooked by five people. They were offering a flight out in the morning, overnight accommodations, food, and a foot rub from the Northwest gate attendant of their choice. Oh, and also a free air ticket anywhere in the US or a $300 voucher for...something or other.

The second time the attendant made the announcement, a guy walking up said, "I'll do it! I'll take that deal!"

It was our pilot. Funny guy.

We left early. I've never seen that happen before. Flight was uneventful. I didn't talk to my seatmates. There was a family in front of us and the baby cried. I didn't mind so much, having been there myself, but I did wish for a pair of those noise-canceling earphones they sell in the catalog conveniently located in the seat-back in front of me.

I was in the back of the plane, of course, and one of the last to get off. The pilot was bidding everyone farewell in the standard airline way, until he saw me. Then, he pointed at me and said, "You're one of them 'redneck women.'"

Well that's what I get for putting the word "NASCAR" across my huge rack. I've gotta watch what my chest tells people; it might be right.

But everything about the pilot said, "Three days from retirement."