"Vanilla-Sully"

Lately, it's come to my attention that there is an unsettling split in my personality. This alter-ego rears its head quite infrequently, and as of late, the occurrences follow a common trend:

I am a different person during air-travel.

Startling as such a proclamation may be, its veracity becomes apparent after even casual scrutiny. Travelling-Sully's temperament is wildly different than that of regular Sully. Travelling-Sully is paranoid; he spends the hours before the flight sweating a nervous sweat, fearing that the US Department of Homeland Security is going to bust him for no good reason.

Travelling-Sully is thoughtful, he wanders around the airport gift-shop, searching for novelty items for anyone who springs to mind; whereas Vanilla-Sully deems the pursuit of shoddily assembled, overpriced knick-knacks as a heinous waste of time. Not only that, but Travelling-Sully is courteous to a disconcerting degree, delighting in the opportunity to show off the extent of his manners. Every request is buttressed with “Excuse me, I hope you don't mind but could you...?”. Even the frequent occurrence of walking past a person on the plane prompts a tirade of 'I do beg your pardons' and 'I'm terribly sorry sirs'. Classic-Sully likes to save his breath.

Not convinced yet? Travelling-Sully gets so excited about the crappy meal on the plane that he can't sleep. Yes, the soggy mess that comes in the foil container, accompanied by stale, communion-wafer-tasting 'I Can't Believe It's Not Rock' bread, covered with jam of a lower viscosity than water, and cheese that can only be described as 'something that was squeezed out of one of the stewardesses and then curdled'. I know that airline food is rank, you do too, but would somebody explain that to Travelling-Sully? It seems that this splinter-personality avails of different taste buds than I do.

He beams at the choice: “Beef or Chicken?”, furrowing his brow in deep contemplation before spitting out an answer at random; so excited that he can't think straight. Delighted by the elaborate three-course spread that sits on the 20x30cm tray before him, he restrains himself just enough to eat the courses in their intended order, as if to do otherwise would upset the airline chef. After an epic struggle with the bread that claimed the serrated edge of his pathetic plastic knife, he finally cuts his dinner-roll in half, and sets about spreading the butter, feeling oh-so-incredibly intelligent for melting it a little by placing it under the piping hot container the 'main course' arrived in. Once he's done breaking his teeth on that, he picks up the generic brand of cracker that has soaked up more rivers than global warming, and fumbles around for the cheese that the elderly women on the plane are paring down and remodelling as a replacement for their dentures.

Once the remaining slop has been shovelled down, Travelling-Sully gleefully eats the token dessert offering of a muffin made from recycled styrofoam, plops the stamp sized mint into his gob, and sits back, satisfied, the only remaining excitement he has to look forward to the 'test-your-might' game at the luggage-claim carousel...