Nail sabotage.

My family and I had just been out to Larnaca in Cyprus for a couple of weeks to visit our vast number of relatives. A superb time was had by all and splendid weather was enjoyed for the entire duration.

So it gets to the return flight. Nothing particularly unusual about that you may think, but we must have been about half way back to Heathrow when the woman in front of us decides that she will paint her nails. Due to the obviously rather limited ventilation opportunities of being encapsulated in a metal tube many miles above the ground, the aroma of her cuticle lacquer quickly became somewhat overpowering.

Anyway, after she had finished one hand she sort of raised it up and hung it over the back of the top of her seat to let it dry, resting it not that far from my fathers already offended olfactory centre.

Well, this was too good an opportunity to miss in the eyes of Asbo Senior. Mildly annoyed by her selfish appendage decorating, slightly bored from the flight and possibly light headed from the toxic fumes emanating from her pungent bottle, he decides to exact his revenge. A serviette remained from the quite exquisite in-flight meal and he proceeded to calmly rip it up into tiny little pieces, each piece being perhaps the size of a page ripped from a studious bee’s notebook. Now with the precision of a surgeon performing open heart surgery upon a sickly humming bird and with a sly grin he began placing them upon her drying but still sticky nails.

Once completed the anticipation was almost too much to take. She seemed to leave her hand up in that same position for what felt like weeks. This was a good thing though. The varnish must by now have been fully dried, with the ripped pieces of serviette now trapped in their translucent prison upon this woman’s hand.





Finally the hand was removed. Nothing. Not a murmur. She either didn’t notice, which I find hard to believe or was just very determined not to give us the satisfaction of a reaction of any sort.

Bit of an anti-climax I’m afraid.
(Asbo Enthusiast, Sat 31 May 2008, 21:43, Reply)