Watson Wire

Pretty in Pink

Thursday, August 07, 2008 |

I've been traveling like a mad man over the last few weeks.  Several trips have been for legislative committee meetings, but I've had to take a couple of business trips, too.  Sadly, I'm cursed when it comes to plane travel.

I hate getting on a plane.  It's miserable.  My flights get canceled unexpectedly.  Late arrival is the norm.  And airport connections always seem to involve a train ride and a long hike.

One recent trip was a case study in my usual sky-high bad karma. On the other hand, it also involved some quality time with a good chunk of the Mary Kay cosmetics family.

I left Austin and made my connection at DFW airport.  When I boarded the plane from Dallas to Philadelphia, I realized it was about two-thirds full of Mary Kay representatives.  Lots of pink name tags on lapels and pink luggage in those overhead bins.  Some of these folks wore ribbons – lots of ribbons – announcing that the sales rep was a "speaker" or "presenter" or had sold some huge amount of makeup and perfume and what not.  A few had on more ribbons than a Third World dictator.

Their presence, at least in my travel-addled mind, raised a number of obvious questions.  Why was Mary Kay invading Philadelphia?  Did the East Coast need special fragrance help?  Do the good people of Pennsylvania need lots of assistance "getting their color on"?  Does the Keystone State have an unusual number of WMD's – Women with Makeover Desire?

Lucky for me, these were great, nice, forgiving women who were eager to chat and answer my charming questions.  It turns out they'd been in Dallas at a big Mary Kay convention, and they were all heading home to various cities on the East Coast through Philly.

So we pushed back from the gate at DFW.  And as those familiar with my typical flight schedule would expect, we sat.  The Captain mercilessly told us that the plane was overweight and we couldn't take off, but to sit tight because the airline was trying to figure out what to leave behind.

We sat some more.  For a long time.  Long enough, in fact, that the Captain eventually came back on to tell us we'd burned so much fuel that we were now light enough to fly.

We took off and flew for a couple of hours.  Then the Captain announced that we were in a holding pattern over Norfolk, Virginia.   We flew in circles for more than an hour and a half.  Long enough, in fact, that the Captain came back on to tell us that we were now low on fuel and would need to land.  Not in Philadelphia, but in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

I now know that Harrisburg is 100 miles from Philadelphia.

We landed.  It was raining.  With lightning.  So they couldn't put gas on our plane.  Plus, the Philly airport was now closed because of weather.

So we sat on the Harrisburg tarmac for over two hours.  People were allowed to get up and move around.  We weren't going anywhere anytime soon.

At that point, the Mary Kay Convention that had started in Dallas was in full force in Harrisburg, and the ladies got up in the aisle and started partying.  I read my book, until I realized what a great opportunity I was missing.

So I stood and proclaimed, "Ladies, you need to know how disappointed I am in you."  One sales rep summoned her people skills and asked me why.  I explained that I'd been sitting here with nothing to do for hours and not a single one of them had offered me a facial.

Now I already knew that East Coast girls are hip, and I really dig those styles they wear.  But, at that moment, I learned that East Coast women can hoot and holler like a bunch of good ol' girls from Texas.  A neat woman with a New Jersey accent that Tony Soprano couldn't top said, "Hang on honey.  I'm sure one of us has some male products somewhere here in one of these bags."

And she made clear that she thought I could use them.

Lesson learned.  Quit worrying about how late the plane is.  Get over the hassle.  Because, no matter the circumstances, things ought to be fun.  Particularly if you look good and smell good.