Karyn Spencer

Kids ask me all the time what’s wrong with my face. Children lack social awareness, which makes them simultaneously horrible and awesome. Just when I want to turn around in my airplane seat and rip a kid’s feet off for kicking the back of my chair, he asks his mom in a loud voice why that old man is smelly.

Make a joke after a few moments of peace, one of those jokes that isn’t funny because of its sharp wit, but funny because it’s a comment on our current state, designed to make both of us ease further into the bubble of each other that we’re currently floating in. You could say something about how I’m as pale as the sheets, or how your pet is staring at us from the corner, or how the lady upstairs is walking like an elephant. And we’ll laugh together.