An eastbound commercial airliner is crossing over Nebraska at 37,000 feet on a sunny fall afternoon late in 2003. Suddenly, from the first-class cabin, the shrill tones of a woman's agitated voice startle dozing passengers throughout the plane.

"Why, why, why me? Whhhyyyy?" the woman screams. She lunges into the coach section, spots the only open seat, on the aisle, and settles in. She is fuming.

Another female passenger in the adjoining window seat has a sweatshirt's hood pulled over her head. She awakens from a deep sleep as her new seatmate mumbles on, still furious.

	Can you say whack job?

"First he coughs and sneezes all over me for two hours. Then he spills hot coffee and tries to hit on me. The jerk!" she says.

"I think I was married to that guy once," says the hooded voice by the window.

Their heads turn as both crack a smile. Then, their eyes meet. Nancy Kerrigan stifles a gasp. She is staring at Tonya Harding. It's either going to be Tonya in coach, or back up to Seat 1B to face the sleaze-ball human germ dispenser.

NK: "You're a wrestler now, I hear."

TH: "Boxer. I'm a professional boxer. I get paid to hurt people."

NK: "So not much has changed these past 10 years."

TH: "Very funny. What have you been up to? You did that lame children's book about your life, then what?"

NK: "I didn't write it. Some lame freelancer wrote it. I kept skating, did a lot of TV specials, married my ex-agent and became a mom."

TH: "Hey, sorry about that whole Detroit thing. I can't believe it was 10 years ago already. January in Detroit in the snow, ugh!"

NK: "January 6, 1994. About 2 o'clock. You would have made the Olympic team, anyway. You didn't have to turn some goon loose on me!"

TH: "I never thought he'd go through with it. But if he'd missed your knee that day, think of all of the mediocre skaters and event promoters who'd have been denied the chance to earn millions of bucks from the new popularity we gave skating! Think of how it might have stopped Connie Chung's rise as a landmark broadcast journalist! Think of all the TV specials that would never have happened. People would've been robbed of seeing Rudi Galindo skate in that sailor's suit like 150 times. An entire generation would've been denied great TV ... Katarina & Friends, Brian & Friends, Scott Hamilton & His Really Rich IMG Friends, Kristi Yamaguchi & All of Her Size Two Friends!"

NK: "You forgot Jamie and David & All Their New Russian Friends. And what about my cable special, Halloween On Ice? We did that one a few years running. There was only one made-for-TV event more frightening than that -- After-Hours German Luxury Sedan Driving with Oksana Baiul & Friends. Until she stared down a Connecticut state trooper at 3 in the morning, she thought Olympic judges were the cruelest people on earth!"

TH: "You have a sense of humor. Who knew? Where was it hiding 10 years ago? So what's up?"

	A Tonya and Nancy reunion? Let's hope Gillooly takes the legs out from under that idea.

NK: "My husband, Jerry Solomon, and I are looking at some future television projects."

TH: "Hey, how 'bout a Tonya and Nancy Reunion Tour? A few sequins, a few left hooks, some bootleg honeymoon video. A reality series."

NK: "You mean a Nancy and Tonya Reunion Tour, don't you?"

TH: "Oh, you martyred Olympic silver medalists are sooooooo annoying!"

NK: "Almost as bad as chain-smoking asthmatics! ... A tour, huh? That's your dumbest idea since, 'Operation: Cripple the Boston Ice Princess on the Eve of the U.S. Championships'."

TH: "Not my idea. C'mon, forget the past. We could assemble the most dysfunctional cast, skaters and non-skaters, in human history, all starring in 'Nancy & Tonya & People Who Need Friends'." We could get one of those big companies like Enron or Tyco to sponsor the whole thing."

NK: "I'll think about it."

TH: "What's to think about? Look, I'm back. My pro boxing career is taking off. Did you see what I did to Paula Jones in the ring? She was as dazed as that French ice dancing judge in Salt Lake City."

NK: "Salt Lake was so scandalous, I thought maybe that ex-husband of yours had turned up in Utah. What's his name, Jeff Gigolo?"

TH: "That would be Gillooly, spelled H-A-R-D-I-N-G. Two husbands ago. Stay focused, Nance. Look, all we do is put together the most famous people of the last 10 years. You skate a little still, right? Just do that leg-behind-your-head thing for 30 seconds. I'll do celebrity bouts in the ring. Monica Lewinsky. Martha Stewart. Jack Welch's ex-wife. Jessica Simpson. Anna Kournikova. What is it they say? 'Those who can't, box'."

NK: "We'll need judges."

TH: "What we need is to put butts in seats. We'll use only those connected to dramatic, harsh or hasty judgment -- Osama bin Laden, Eliot Spitzer, Bill Clinton, Rush Limbaugh, Daniel Snyder, maybe even that hanging chad lady from Florida, Kathleen Harris. A bunch of guys from Guantanamo. And O.J. Simpson needs work, too."

	Some girls get all the breaks.

NK: "Who'd televise this, this ... tour, or whatever it is?"

TH: "Do you ever pick up a newspaper? You haven't heard of The Ice Channel? Skating, 24/7. My ex-agent is launching it."

NK: "Seems like a reach. Who wants to watch skating all the time?"

TH: "Almost as outrageous as this Football Network I heard about. Football, 24/7, on cable and the Internet. What are they smokin'?"

NK: "Yes, I know. My ex-agent is launching it."

TH: "Your husband?"

NK: "Yep."

TH: "So a guy whacks you on the knee, and you get an Olympic medal, millions of dollars and a husband with a day job? Some people catch all the breaks."

Steve Woodward witnessed the first triple Axel jump by an American female skater (Tonya Harding, 1991); the first business chat between Nancy Kerrigan and her future spouse Jerry Solomon (Oakland, 1992); all of the 1994 press conferences in Detroit after Kerrigan was attacked; her first practice session in Boston following the well-documented knee bruising; and Harding's riveting arrival under tight security followed by her infamous broken boot lace incident in Norway during the 1994 Winter Games. He later dabbled as a skating agent -- notably, the only one not to make any money on the post-Nancy/Tonya era. This led him into dabbling as a lame writer of sports books for kids.