Mom might have thought it funny to get hit in the head by a salted peanut. I have my doubts about that. I never got a chance to find out how she’d feel about it, though, because the peanut landed right in the mouth of Mom’s snoring seatmate. Mom didn’t even look up.

Her seatmate was a fat man in a suit. He had been sleeping with his head tilted all the way back, his neck rolling over the top of the seat. He had a newspaper section in his lap, folded in eights. Clearly he had been working on the crossword. He was snoring with his mouth open; the peanut went right in.