By Cynthia Adams

As Pan Am approached its final destination in December 1991, it offered heavily discounted airfares, beginning that summer.

Monitoring deals, I noticed a $300 Pan Am offer from New York to Nice. At the height of travel season!

My elegant friend, Dixie, who loved travel, was immediately interested. We grabbed tickets and spent weeks excitedly planning. We’d enjoy the South of France, proceeding to Italy, where her friends were renting a place. Then I’d return solo from Genoa via Nice.

Consulting Frommer’s, my go-to guide, I circled budget hotels, pensiones and cafés.

Better-heeled travel friends offered advice. “Always request the airline’s vegetarian meal,” said Tom, who had studied at the Sorbonne. “It’s fresher, better.” Noted, I phoned the airline requesting special meals for both of us.

Meanwhile, Dixie was packing a rolling duffel dubbed “the beached whale.” She was still stuffing the Whale when we picked her up for departure. It was aptly named (no weight limits then), especially as she dressed to kill versus as a whale harpooner.

She was decked out in crisp linen and a hat for departure. I wore something comfortable.

We were in coach and I had the middle seat, but who cared?

The Riviera awaited! Once airborne, Dixie produced a small bottle of wine from her capacious hand luggage. “To celebrate!”

We surreptitiously toasted.

Aisle Seat shot us a look that said, “Couldn’t you wait?” — which we ignored. I produced Mrs. Field’s cookies purchased at the airport, which she refused. “I’m saving myself for our special meal,” she murmured.

Soon we heard our names called; the special meals! The hostess brought ours, ignoring the contraband wine. Aisle Seat stared as we excitedly opened them to find: A congealed lump of rice, black beans . . . and a whole kiwi, rolling manically around.

Aisle Seat gawped at our trays before smiling at his: beef tips on rice with steamed veggies, roll and cake.

Leaning over, Aisle Seat whispered, “Do you mind my asking what is wrong with you that you have to eat that?”

We wept with laughter. Giving up on the inedible, unseasoned food I vigorously attempted cutting the kiwi with my plastic knife. It escaped each attempt. “I’m hungry enough to just gnaw it,” I confessed.

More misadventure lay ahead.

Once in France, the Beached Whale proved challenging for coming travels, especially using trains along the Côte d’Azur. It was beastly navigating hilly destinations. Reaching our inn, I would arrive panting; me in jeans, Dixie in beautifully rumpled linen.

Controlling the Whale’s wonky wheels and heft left me perpetually famished. We found reasonable fare and delicious jug wine. That is, apart from my one order for fruits de mer, which in my terrible French, arrived raw.

Still, more tears of laughter.

Dixie, a former model, wafted along with aristocratic grace.

Men trailed in her wake.

Once in Genoa, noisily chattering women encircled and jostled Dixie as she stood perfectly quiet. A few blocks later she discovered she was robbed. She quoted Tennessee Williams’ last line in Streetcar: “I’ve always depended upon the kindness of strangers.”

Her wallet, relieved of cash, was kindly returned to the train station.

But, at her friend’s rental, I broke the Italian washing machine. A Candy washing machine. That required negotiations with the Candy Man for repairs. And an emptying of my cash.

Yet it was my solo return to Nice where the greatest travails awaited. I was pulled out of the boarding line by officials demanding a full body search. “But I’m an American citizen!” I protested. “I have rights!”

“Not here in France,” they replied, strangers to Tennessee’s dictum, wheeling a contraption like a portable shower for privacy as they proceeded with the search. They studied my luggage, sternly questioning hair dryer repairs during my travels. (As if any American, ever, repairs a hair dryer.)

“Nope. Only a Candy washing machine,” I answered.

Upon boarding, all eyes were upon the woman detainee who made the flight late. I kept my eyes forward, flush with embarrassment.

Soon after departure came a flurry of announcements. Lunch would soon be served.

“Special meal for Ms. Adams!” chirped a Frenchwoman.

I kept my face averted, studying the disappearing coastline.

When the hostess approached my seat bearing what was probably another congealed mass of starch, I feigned ignorance of any such request. “I’ve no dietary restrictions,” I replied stonily. “Perhaps there was a mistake.”

The hostess looked knowingly. Was that a wink?

“Perhaps so,” she said, mercifully retreating, holding the damnable meal aloft.

When the headline announcing the final Pan Am flight ran later that year, it was the end of a once grand airline. I folded the paper. “It was the gawdawful vegetarian meals,” I muttered.

If only I had told them before it was too late.