This happened

6-29-2014

Reno to Denver, Flight 5129 

He was a spry old man and assertive. Before I quit paying much attention to him, I heard him stating terse, bald judgments to the lady I assume was his wife.

Later, I noticed he was reading. Later, I noticed he was smiling and looking across the aisle, across me, across the lady from Cleveland sitting next to me, staring out our window. He did not seem to register that I was looking at him.

As he stared and smiled, I noticed that resting atop his left ear, leaning away from his head and against the top of his ear was a white plastic bread tag, one of the clips used to hold shut the plastic bags sliced bread comes in. I kept checking. It was completely there. It was a bread bag tag.

I wondered if maybe it had been his bookmark, and his ear was a convenient storage shelf.

I thought about him today when I made some toast. I put a bread bag clip up on top my own ear, used a twist tie on the bread bag, ate my toast, and forgot about the clip until 20 or 30 minutes later when I glanced in the mirror and saw it.

I understand now how the man was able to exit the airplane and walk out onto the concourse with a bread tag resting on his left ear.